Bush’s first-draft effort at excusing himself post-Katrina always seemed completely feeble:
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”
We all knew that he was full of it. Hurricane experts knew, the government’s own engineers knew and most of the residents of New Orleans knew that the levees could go if they got hit with a big enough storm surge. The only people who apparently didn’t anticipate a levee failure were George Bush and his empty-suit head of homeland security, Michael Chertoff.
Now, amusingly if you’re not a victim of the catastrophic clusterf**k that was Katrina, the AP has obtained video evidence that even that wasn’t true:
WASHINGTON — In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.
Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”
Needless to say, this video came from somebody who has a beef with the president. As Bush’s star dims it’ll be interesting to see how many more of those folks are out there and what kind of material they’re sitting on.
John Amato, of course, has the video.
Pooh
That video is objectively pro-terrorist as it gives aid and comfort to our enemies that our disaster response abilities sum to about fuck-all.
srv
When you’re a leader who is so used to failures like Iraq, it isn’t surprising that he wasn’t able to see the urgency of New Orleans. Just like his finally getting off literacy program event in Florida after the 9/11 attack, we must wait until the media panic makes it clear to his handlers that there is a problem that must be dealt with.
Besides, it was that mayors fault anyway.
Pb
What’s that you say? Bush lied, people died? Video proof? Must be another one of those liberal facts…
ppGaz
Amazing. And these are the onionheads who want us to trust them to “stay the course” in a war that has been made into a mess for three years.
“This war is winnable.” — Dick Cheney
“Not by this administration.” — Howard Dean
Dean is right.
Ancient Purple
Just remember, kids:
Lying about a blowjob will always be worse than anything Bush lies about.
Always.
Richard Bottoms
Bush is a lying sack of shit.
What else is new?
Zerthimon
Anyone notice how good Brown comes off in this video?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060301/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_video
StupidityRules
PsychicNews Exclusive: “Captain of the Titanic reborn as George W Bush”
Sock Puppet
Bush never lies. He just forgets. Is that all it takes for you people to hate? A bad memory?
Pigs.
StupidityRules
Some of the chairs in the video wasn’t made before December 2005. It’s obviously a fake made by Howard Dean, Move On and Michael Brown.
Sock Puppet
And you know SR, that really isn’t President Bush in that video, either. It’s the late Don Knotts participating in a vicious attack on America.
I’ll bet Jesus is roasting his skinny ass now!
Paul Wartenberg
I can’t… I’ve been thinking up about 10 different nasty things to say about Dubya right now, about his damn lying, his damn ineptitude, his damn… rrrggg… Right now he’s off in India, I pray to Vishnu the damn bastard stays there…
Rob
How did this video get out?
Sock Puppet
Somebody from the Don Knotts Estate. Big funny joke, right?
These people will do anything to defame us.
Krista
Here now, make fun of the politicans and the religious figures all you want. But Don Knotts is sacrosanct.
StupidityRules
Rob asked:
Perhaps Brown’s Levees finally were breached?
Eddie
But the Dems are much worse.
Funny, not one mention on RedState…
Wonder why…?
MN Politics Guru
You need a new category for stuff like this. Not “General Stupidity”, but “Criminal Stupidity”.
Pixie
Sounds familiar…
“I don’t think anyone could have imagined that terrorists would use planes as weapons” -Condi
Andrew
Yet another political attack from the treasonous left.
Paddy O'Shea
Georgie seems to be good for at least one scandal a week.
Somebody on some blog or other compared the Bush admin to the MTV series “Jackass.” This Katrina video expose’ must be this week’s episode.
StupidityRules
“US leader crashed by trying to ‘pedal, wave and speak at same time'”
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=297002006
It’s not funny anymore, just scary.
CaseyL
Because if you ignore it, it isn’t there. It’s how the whole “we make our own reality” shindig works: that which is not acknowledged does not exist.
Andrew
Ok, seriously, let me be the first to propose that we bring back Michael Brown, formally apologize for calling him incompetent, and give him a real Medal of Freedom. Because he was so much more on top of things than anyone else in the entire adminstration.
jaime
It’s like everything Bush ever surpressed, lied about, finagled, and botched all coming to the surface at the same time.
Kimmitt
This is all irrelevant to the fact that Michael Moore is fact and Howard Dean lost his voice after the Iowa primaries.
Pooh
Andrew, the fact that that isn’t a instantly laughable assertion says plenty. (And the fact that Brownie handed Gasbag Norm Coleman his ass at the hearings says almost as much.)
Slide
Is there ANYTHING that this administration hasn’t lied about? ANYTHING?
Steve
Am I a bad person if my first reaction was to wonder what talking point they will come up with to brush this one off? Or perhaps it will be another generic “the Dems will overplay their hand” situation.
stickler
If George Bush tells you the sun rises in the East, I’d advise you to open the window tomorrow morning and look to make sure. “Trust, but verify.”
Their lying is pathological. They do it even when it’ll hurt them and they know it. They’ll still lie. And then lie about having lied.
SeesThroughIt
He definitely was more on top of things than anyone else in the administration. I mean, some things he did he deserves to get roasted for, but he was clearly much more on the ball than Bush or that dickhead Chertoff ever were.
SeesThroughIt
I’m quite curious about this as well. They’re gonna dodge it as best they can, and they can count on the more appallingly sycophantic elements of the onanosphere to defend them to the utmost, but I’m curious how it’s going to manifest. I’m guessing it’ll have something to do with pointing to Bush’s speech where he said he takes responsibility for the Federal failures as proof that he has shouldered his part of the blame, followed by blaming everything on Ray Nagin.
Gray
Too sad that Bush didn’t say the ‘levee sentence’ under oath in a post Katrina hearing…
ppGaz
According to AP and MSNBC, the video was released to the press on August 28. Nobody paid any attention to it, until now.
It was released BEFORE the famous “nobody could have anticipated the levees ….” gaffe.
Digital Amish
How about “Impeachable Ineptitude”. Dear God, if only.
M.A.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the scariest thing about this administration is that they have completely internalized the “liberal media” myth, to the point that they think that all they need to do to get popular again is to “cut through the MSM filter” and explain how great they’re doing. Bush literally believed that if he made speeches about how we’re winning in Iraq, his poll numbers would rebound. He thought confirming Justice Alito would get him in good with the people when nobody cares about judicial appointments outside of the ideological media. He thought he could release a report explaining that he did great during Katrina, and everybody would believe him. He literally, truly thinks that all of America is represented by Brit Hume, Powerline and the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
And that’s what’s scary: real Presidents respond to massive unpopularity by doing something different that will make people like them. Or fire some people and bring in competent folks. Bush’s response is to do exactly what he’s been doing all along, keep exactly the same fuck-ups on his staff, and blame the MSM for his unpopularity. We are doomed.
MN Politics Guru
Sadly, I think that this sums it up perfectly.
They tried their best. And this is what happened.
J. Michael Neal
Am I a bad person if my first reaction was to wonder what talking point they will come up with to brush this one off? Or perhaps it will be another generic “the Dems will overplay their hand” situation.
Actually, it’s pretty obvious. This video was mentioned back when it was released. People commented on it, and it was pointed out that Bush didn’t technically lie. He said no one anticipated a breach in the levees. What he’s warned about is that the levees might be topped. Now, there were plenty of people worried about the levees being breached, but we don’t have video of anyone telling the President that.
ppGaz
Yes, that’s the “No controlling legal authority” defense.
Very impressive, great leadership.
stickler
Well, yes, actually, we are.
On the eve of World War I, after a series of appalling gaffes, Germans began to realize that Kaiser Wilhelm II was incompetent, erratic, and unstable. And it began to dawn on them that he headed a system with a very powerful executive and essentially no civilian control over the military. Then Austria’s Archduke was assassinated, and Europe slid toward war.
Historians call the feeling that settled over the political elite of Germany in the summer of 1914, “sphincter-tightening.”
Any similar feeling you may be experiencing is, of course, completely coincidental and in no way related. Feel free to resume your normally-scheduled shopping.
Ancient Purple
Oy.
Looks like we have the cover going for Bush: It’s all Chertoff’s fault.
I just watched the first 10 minutes of “Scarborough Country” and Joe already was beating the drum that the problem is Homeland Security and Chertoff, but not Bush because he is only responsible for the information he is given.
Sadly, the tapes show Bush did know the information, especially about the levees when briefed by Max Mayfield of the Hurricane Center. So, he either was a liar or incompetent when Bush said that no could anticipate the breach of the levees.
And, on CNN, it is being reported that Homeland Security’s refutation of the AP story is… (wait for it)…
… “the local governments didn’t do their job!”
Too bad they forgot to blame Clinton, too.
Steve
I haven’t watched the video. Is the WaPo lying?
Ancient Purple
Why are you playing the semantics game?
The conference call that Bush was on clearly indicated that Brown and the FEMA officials said Katrina was “the big one.” Bush then says that the federal government is fully prepared to help out. Max Mayfield said the problem would be 1) the storm surge and the massive flooding caused from it and 2) the flooding from the levees being “topped.”
Bush wants to rely on the fact that no one used the word “breached” as his cover? That is a joke.
Or are you suggesting that Bush would have gotten a pass if the levees would have remained intact, but the flooding would have been only, say, 25 feet instead of 30 feet?
Lis Riba
Am I a bad person if my first reaction was to wonder what talking point they will come up with to brush this one off?
According to Firedoglake,
Demonstrating once again that “national security” is meaningless to this administration — an excuse for not complying with Congress, and something to be ignored when they have to cover their asses…
Richard 23
B-b-b-but, the busses….
searp
It is time to wonder if there is a level of public mendacity that really does require impeachment. How can the citizenry have any confidence in the government if all we receive is a stream of lies and evasions from the President? Has he ever been honest about a single important event in his presidency?
The Other Steve
What’s interesting is that the Bush Whitehouse expends far more time and effort trying to discredit whoever released this video….
Than they did trying to help people caught in the wake of Katrina.
Just interesting how when they really do want to do something, they are able to muster together and make it happen.
J. Michael Neal
Why are you playing the semantics game?
Sigh. I’m not. I’m just telling you what happened. This video was discussed back in September. There was absolutely no revelation today. All that happened is that we actually saw a video that was talked about in the media. We knew all of this.
The Bush administration made exactly the argument that I said they did. I figured my previous post would have indicated that I don’t have a lot of use for the “technically true” defense, but I guess not. Bush lied by misdirection, which really is as much of a lie as a lie of commission, but it has technical outs.
I haven’t watched the video. Is the WaPo lying?
Again, it depends upon what you think about a statement that is technically true. I’ve watched the video, and all I heard was them discussing the water “topping” the levies. No one says anything about a breach. Maybe there’s more video that isn’t in that clip, but that’s what’s there.
Vladi G
I can vouch for JMN. He’s not defending Bush, or making that argument. He’s just reiterating what the wingnuts were saying when this came out the first time, that breeching and topping are not the same thing. It’s a stupid fucking argument, but that’s what they’ll say again.
Bob In Pacifica
Purple, let us not forget those 200-odd visits by male prostitute Jeff Gannon to the White House. So Bush may also have the opportunity to lie about a blow job.
Ancient Purple
Fair enough, JMN. My apologies for reacting so harshly.
Ray Radlein
He certainly was a lot more on the ball during the run-up than GWB or DHS itself; but once the storm really hit the fan, he was pretty quickly out of his depth. If he’d had competent people above and around him to help move information and orders up and down the chain more quickly, he might have been able to keep up; but as soon as things started to go seriously wrong, he was useless.
An experienced FEMA head would have known how to handle things when the play book becomes obsolete (“no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy”), but Brownie had no clue, and you can tell by some of his reactions as events unfolded. Remember those e-mails of his? Some of them really read like a guy who has just suffered a Divide by Zero Error.
Aside from the fact that he shares complicity in the deaths of hundreds of people, I’d almost feel a little sorry for him.
Pb
What is worse, and fairly obvious, is that after the levees were topped, that could then cause or contribute to their subsequently being breached.
Got that? Topped, and then as a result, breached, due to erosion of the foundation under the wall. Anyone who has ever built a sand castle could have anticipated the breach of the levees, given that they could be topped. Maybe Bush (and everyone who briefed him) never went to the beach as a child?
AkaDad
They had all kinds of warnings
Two days before Katrina hit FEMA predicted that Hurricane Katrina could be worse than Hurricane Pam. [MSNBC 1/24/06]
Hurricane Pam? Responding to Bush’s comments on Meet the Press, Dr. Ivor Van Heerden of the LSU Hurricane Center “I didn’t buy that because, you know, we had discussed on numerous occasions that a worst-case scenario would be if we had one of these major hurricanes and then we lost the levee systems.” A White House advisor sat in on the “Hurricane Pam Exercise,” a computer simulation of the possible effects of a Category 3 hurricane on New Orleans. The exercise found that “…a storm like Hurricane Pam would: cause flooding that would leave 300,000 people trapped in New Orleans, many of whom would not have private transportation for evacuation.” [Meet the Press, 9/11/05]
Eddie
Still no comments on RedState….
Unfreakingbelieveable….
I’m waiting for Streiff, Thomas, Leon, Adam and the rest of the kool-aid drinkers to justify this. But knowing what cowards they are, they’ll just ignore it.
Andrei
John Cole:
Emphasis added.
A lot of crap out there? Oh, much too easy to snark. Hey Cole, like I’ve said before… you’re the one who voted for Bush. Twice. (Yes, I know Tim wrote this, but I assume John still reads his own website.)
Looking back on a lot of what John wrote on this subject and many other subjects reveals basically surface level issues that ultimately are great fodder for those with attention spans of 5 minutes. It’s why I’ve replaced Cole’s BJ with the new Glenn Greenwald blog who is turning out to be the best thing to ever hit the blogosphere. Well written and sourced articles that deserve thought and attention. Although I return to BJ every now and then wondering when I’ll get to read Tim’s blog without all the GOP trollbait and PJ Media ads everywhere.
And yes, I’ll be sure to make sure the door hits me on the ass on the way out. See you on the other side.
Perry Como
The talking points haven’t been handed down yet. Expect alot of word play and nuance.
PotVsKtl
CNN
stickler
Clearly Mr. Como hasn’t been to RedState much. There won’t be anything at all until the pro-Government narrative has settled. We’ll probably have to wait until Saturday, maybe Monday, before an erudite pile of steaming PR gets dumped on the Redstate frontpage, explaining how everything is A-OK and we have actually always been at war with Eastasia.
Just wait.
Slide
One thing you’ll notice, the worse the news is for Bush the less we see Cole posting. Its hard being an apologist these days. Exhausting I would imagine. Haven’t seen much of Darrell either have we? Or Stormy? Or the ever entertaining Al Maviva? Nope, the only true blue apologist that is not hiding is MacBuckets. So, my hats off to you bucket boy, you are loyal if nothing else. The fact that you’ve become a human pinata has not deterred you.
Oh, and Andrei I totally agree with you on Glen Greenwald. I have just recently started reading him and I’m addicted. I have found that he, with his great writing, articulates what I feel better than any other blogger out there.
TBone
If everyone absolutely/positively knew the levees would break, then why didn’t Mayor Willy Wonka evacuate all his oompa-loompa constituents before the hurricane hit? After the hurricane hit, why didn’t the Mayor use his school busses to evacuate them? If everyone knew the levees were going to break, why didn’t they spend some of that Louisiana tax money on the friggin levees before the storm hit? I know because it was Bush’s fault. Why didn’t I think of that before. We all know Bush is responsible and at fault for everything that goes wrong, including natural disasters. Hell, the Federal government is responsible to do everything for us; including wipe our asses. How stupid of me.
I say Bush was responsible for Katrina too. Everyone knows hurricanes are going to hit Louisiana each year, so Bush should have just sent Mayor Count-Chocula at least 10 billion dollars at the beginning of the year just in case. I can’t believe how awful Bush is for not doing that anyway. What a lying bastard. We all know Bush hates blacks. What a racist. He hates all people, except rich people. Raise up all you proles. Viva Che! Viva Karl Marx!
Bush lied, people died. The chicken’s fried, with beans and rice on the side. No blood for oil. Okra and crawdad boil. Let’s come up with another snappy slogan we can all chant as we are blaming Bush for ALL the world’s ills, and completely ignoring everyone elses responsibility and culpability. Nah, fuck it, we don’t care about the truth anyway…it’s easier and more fun to bash G.W.
TBone
Of course not. The press never lies or prints biased inaccurate material. Keep reading and believing. As long as it’s bashing Bush, it’s got to be true.
No, of course not. Everything that comes out of this administration is a lie. Everything. They wanted the people of Louisiana to die!! They knew that lots of blacks lived in New Orleans, so they planned to ignore them so they could start their secretly planned genocide. They not only hate blacks; the hate poor people, the environment, the elderly, Louisiana, saving people (unless they are rich), and freedom too. They want to take away your rights and spy on you while you watch tivo, with the secret plan to put you all in concentration camps where they will torture and sodomize you. You know those evil nazi stormtrooper Republicans…they can’t be trusted. If they didn’t do it because they are inherently evil, they did it because they are totally inept and stupid. Everyone knows that as soon as Bush stole the election (twice) that he purposely fired everyone and hired stupid people to work in their places. It doesn’t matter that they were successful businessmen prior to taking their posts, because you don’t have to be savvy to be rich. Rich people are evil anyway. The only good thing that comes out of evil corporations is the money we can divert to those poor folks in the Choco-city.
Our only salvation will be when those trustworthy Democrats take over the administration…then for sure you will be saved. I’m sure the Choco-city mayor would be a great President, because we know he handled his business with complete competence. And everyone knows Democrats never lie. They will stop global warming, save the whales, stop terrorism, AND give out free passes to Disney World to all the good girls and boys. Hooray!! Two legs bad, four legs good. Baaaaah.
Some of you guys are so indoctrinated, it’s scary. I bet your ideological masters are very happy they have you mindless zombies out there to help them grab power. Weep and gnash your teeth. Attack, attack!! You brave Don Quixotes.
Slide
Lots of strawman arguments TBone but when you talk about people being indoctrinated you seem to take the cake. If you are comfortable with the competency and honesty of this administration good for you. I assume then Bush is the standard for the right wing on how a leader should behave. Please, please keep defending this man as his polls drop into the low 30’s. Let America see with clairty that YOU and your right wing robots APPROVE of the job the President is doing.
oh…. and nobody is saying Mayor Nagin didnt fuck up. but 99% of Americans are not effected by the competency of a mayor from NO. We ARE effected by the competency of the Commander in chief.
oh… and no reasonable person says bush wanted black people to die
oh… and no one is suggesting that bush is evil. Just completely incompetent, dishonest, unintelligent, uncurious, lazy and arrogant. some might suggest that that combination of characteristics might make one evil by default, but not me.
Oh… and no one is saying being rich means you are evil
oh…and no one is saying Democrats haven’t been known to lie
oh.. .and no one is saying that there aren’t Democrats that are incompetent. (please read a left wing blog once in a while and see how us “lefties” talk about Democratic politicians. Trust me its not a love fest.
ok… I can go on and on about your silly post but I’ll leave it at that.
rwalllis
only read some of the post, but it seem that the fact that Bush did call Gov. Blanco on Sat. night and asked her to evacuate NO it was not until Sun that Nagyn called for a manditory evacuation (and did so on to please the gov and the pres. ) now the blunders that happened we because the local officials did not follow the plan and they failed do to their job. the officials in charge on the local level were running around screaming “do something help do someting bring in the calvary” when they were the ones who should have been doing something ( okay they were doing something, all of it wrong) you all sound as if Bush could have waved a magic wand and made the hurricane go away, what fools you are, you have no logic nor reason only to scream that Bush is bad and only show how utterly without logic you are. Bush could not have prevented the breach but if Nagyn had of followed proceedure and evaculated the city like he should have there would be less peaople dead, but the city would still be under water.
Jorge
Hey, by the Bush standard of technical truth, Clinton never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinski.
DougJ
TBone, I suspect that that video tape is a fake, the same way the CBS memos were. Have the guys at Powerline looked into this yet?
moflicky
read this story which tells us a lot of things you didn’t read in the wapo and ap versions of the story.
See if it describes the same issues in the same tone about bush’s detatchment over katrina, before you all knee jerk your legs out of their sockets.
the times-pic should be your only source of katrina news. They’ve been amazingly accurate, even during the crisis when all those false stories about murder, rape and mayhem started coming out of the superdome.
it must be because they hire reporters at the times-pic, not shills.
Vlad
From that article in the Scotsman: “At the time Bush laughed off the incident, saying he should start ‘acting his age’.”
That’s a nice microcosm of his presidency, isn’t it?
tzs
Oh, DougJ, have you thrown the match on the nitroglycerin now….
Pass the popcorn.
Lee
No talking points on this yet?
Will the only reply by the Administration be pointing out the failures at the state/local level?
Personally I think that will be the only reply, the Administration will point out that others failed as well.
Granted we have posters here doing the BushBot Boogie (dancing around with their fingers in their ears repeating the same banal phrases about the Democrats and our glorious leader) but nothing of substance yet?
moflicky
you guys are never satisfied are you?
if they remain quiet, they’re sandbagging. If they defend themselves, they’re spouting Rove initiated talking points.
the only thing that will sate you is if they shit all over themselves, begging forgiveness for not including howard dean and george soros in all administration meetings.
Lee
I’m fine with them actually defending themselves. But that is not done my pointing out the failures of others.
Realistically at this point the administration is only good for its comedic value.
ppGaz
Well, that would be an improvement. For five years, they’ve beens shitting all over us.
Lee
Well played!
/golf clap
Ancient Purple
You are probably right.
Now, please tell me how that mitigates the fact that Bush was lying through his teeth when he said, “No one could have anticipated the levees being breached?”
If you standard is that you can lie if someone else is equally culpable, then I have my salvo ready for my next staff meeting at work.
Jim Allen
The sad part is, there are still bloggers who think that no matter how bad Bush is, Gore and Kerry would have been worse.
However, none of them can explain how.
Jim Allen
Well, I don’t know if that’s the only thing, but it would be a start.
Richard 23
The busses. State and local. State and local.
Jim Allen
Hyperbole, of course — no one really believes that this is how the administration actually thinks. I just wish this administration wouldn’t act like this is the way they think.
Lee
I think the best thing to happen to the Democrats was that Bush was re-elected. Could you imagine how the Republicans would be howling about Kerry dropping the ball in Iraq and that X would never have happened if St. Bush was at the helm.
JKC
Y’all need to remember just one thing in the future:
When anyone in the Bush League says “I don’t think anybody anticipated…” it means that they knew it could happen, but were unable to prevent it.
The phrase must have come from Karen Hughes big book of cliche replies to the press.
neil
Yes, there are talking points. Shorter version: Leaks are the real story! Nothing new here!
ET
moflicky – the TP really did step up to the plate with this. Sometimes they are not thought too fondly of…. They have some great T-shirts for sale….
“We publish come hell and high water”
The Other Steve
In many ways, I agree. Although Kerry would never have been so incompetent, and some of this shit would never have happened.
Like selling nuclear fuel to India? What the fuck?
Sam Hutcheson
Some of you guys are so indoctrinated, it’s scary. I bet your ideological masters are very happy they have you mindless zombies out there to help them grab power. Weep and gnash your teeth. Attack, attack!! You brave Don Quixotes.
Mmmmm, the sweet taste of irony.
LITBMueller
The half-assed Rovian responses to the video we’ve heard so far, and my snarky responses to Rove:
1) The release of the transcripts from the day after the video.
— Day late and a dollar short, buddy. No good getting concerned about airplanes striking the WTC on 9/12.
2) Bush said “breached,” the video talked about “topping.”
— It’s the water, stupid. Both breaching and topping mean that water is going where you don’t want it to – into places where people frickin’ live.
3) But, Mayor Nagin fucked up, too. And, Blanco!!! And…the busses!!!!
— Yeah, but they don’t control the Feds, don’t have their fingers on the nuclear button, and haven’t started two wars in the Middle East.
OK, Rove, give me some more! I’m ready for ya, and the wussies at RedState are still waiting for their talking points memo!!!
Steve
The only defense of Bush I’ve heard so far is that other people screwed up too. That’s so far from a real defense that it’s not funny. What it really is is just an attack on the character of Bush’s accusers – “see, you refuse to blame anyone else, which proves you’re just a Bush-hater!”
When you ignore the character assault, it sure seems to me like you’re left with the fact that Bush lied about the levees, and that he yukked it up with John McCain and stood around playing guitar when he knew full well that a serious natural disaster was ongoing. It’s no wonder the Bushbots don’t even try to defend any of that.
Al Maviva
Please read the primary sources before relying on AP to tell you what to think. The mass media is controlled by the Right Wing, remember? So you should fact check their ass before proclaiming the latest scandal du jour.
There’s a difference between waters “overtopping” levees causing mild flooding, and breaching levees and wiping out the city. The video transcript of the actual prediction made in the August 28th briefing was for “mild flooding” of NOLA, with a predictive accuracy of +/- 20% due to modeling constraints. I believe it is safe to assume that “mild flooding” is a prediction of overtopping, not breach.
The next transcript of the video conference later prediction made on August 29 stated “but it looks like the federal levies [sic] will not have been (incomprehensible) any breaches to.”
It isn’t entirely clear what the second quote means, you would had to have been there to really have a feel for that garnled bit, but it sounds like a prediction that the Federal levees will hold.
Read together, the predictions are for mild overtopping, and the federal levees will not be breached. Just because people mentioned possible worst case scenarios, doesn’t mean that worst case responses were in order. By way of comparison, a couple animals have died in Europe from Avian flu. Worst case scenario is a pandemic that kills 50 million Americans. Ought the president declare quarantine, shut the borders, and order all birds and pets killed? Probably not. It’s generally more appropriate for government to try to prepare for what’s likely to happen, than the worst possible thing that could happen. Was the response to the Katrina prediction (mild flooding, federal levees should hold) appropriate? I don’t know. I do know arguing that “Bush knew the levees would fail and NOLA would be wiped out” based on these transcripts is an over-reading the transcripts don’t support very well.
Next scandal of the day, please…
LITBMueller
Assrocket‘s talking point:
Of course, there are no links supporting Assrocket’s claim that overtopping was “a much less dangerous threat.”
So, was it?
No:
And, no:
Nice try, apologists…got another one?
CDB
So its depends on what your definition of “Breach” is?
demimondian
Sorry, Al, but this is wrong:
You were alive during the 1992 Mississippi floods, weren’t you? Do you remember the concern about the Saint Louis seawall?
Once both sides of the base of a seawall are saturated, the wall will fail unless it is quickly isolated from water on both those sides. Since the base of the New Orleans levee is always wet, the levees un question — which are, essentially, seawalls — would fail if they were overtopped. Two feet, ten feet — it doesn’t matter.
SeesThroughIt
I find it craven and pathetic that so many right-wingers are trying to defend Dear Leader by engaging in an extended parsing of “topped” vs. “breached.” It’s rather like arguing vigorously over what caliber bullet was used to shoot somebody to death in lieu of actually solving the murder.
GOP4Me
The video footage has been taken out of context. Some disgruntled Fifth Columnist leaked it in the hopes of discreding this Administration. Give Bush a day or two, he’ll release supplemental video footage or documents exonerating his conduct. There will also be appropriate criminal charges for the snitch, if and when his or her identity is uncovered.
I realize this version of events isn’t as fun and dramatic as the stained blue dress discovery that we Republicans got to enjoy when the last guy was in the White House, but please, don’t let that stop you from jumping the gun every time some potentially damaging shred of circumstantial evidence hoves into view. There’s nothing the American electorate loves more than viewing actions of desperation on behalf of the “loyal” opposition. (Maybe, just maybe, Bush is a little bit too busy today trying to defuse the permanent tensions along the volatile nuclear border between Hinduism and Islam to rush home and exonerate himself from the kook media’s scandal du jour. Unlike your guy Clinton, who had time for nothing else.)
Steve
If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you should, indeed, check the primary sources rather than rely on Al Maviva’s version of what the primary sources say.
Here is Al’s quote from the August 28 briefing:
Ok, minimal flooding was the prediction. Nothing to see here. But keep reading just to humor me.
Now, it’s true that no one guaranteed the levees would be overtopped or breached. Indeed, that is a Strawman of the Day contender. But I still don’t see how someone could listen to the serious concerns articulated at this and the other briefings and then jet off to play guitar.
Here are some excerpts from the earlier part of the briefing, and again, this is only the August 28 briefing:
One of the frustrations I feel with the “state and local, state and local” crowd is that as ineffectual as Blanco and Nagin may have been, at least they didn’t hear all this and decide it didn’t warrant cutting their vacation short. That’s just a very gut-level, appalling fact.
Tim F.
Question: who was supposed to drive the buses?
Jorge
I live in Tampa and I work for a newschannel that covers 24 hours news. For our area, there are about a million different scenarios of what would happen if a hurricane hit. The worst case scenario for the people of Tampa is a hurricane that comes from the gulf and enters the bottom of Tampa bay going north-east. What will happen then is that the storm surge will bottle up into Tampa bay and Hillsborough river and will have no way of escaping back out to sea. It will severely flood the area.
And whenever a hurricane threatens the area, you have about a 200 mile area up to about 4 hours before the storm were it could hit. Anybody who has spent any time in hurricane country and knows how these things work know that you always have to prepare and expect for a worst case scenario.
But like in everything from the medicare drug bill to the war in Iraq, we have a POTUS who is never, ever prepared for a worst case scenario. For him to go on to TV and say that no one could have anticipated that the levees would fail is absolutely absurd.
ppGaz
Al Maviva weighs in with his patented “No controlling legal authority” bullshit.
Meanwhile, the respect and approval for these complete idiots running the country is being driven into the earth’s crust by a relentless jackhammer of bad and embarassing news.
In Al’s world, it’s talking about these things that is really the problem. Not the fact that your government can’t manage a charity car wash without fucking it up. Or appearing to fuck it up, which in the world of government is the same thing. Something you’d think that the son of a former president would understand, eh?
Of course, if he spent the first forty years of his life drunk and with a nose full of cocaine, maybe he wasn’t paying full attention? Who knows? Historians will sort it all out.
Lee
Funny, Congress asked for information and it was deemed to be in the best interests of national security to not release the information (I think it was emails originally). So now it is ok to weaken national security to score politcal points?
Jorge
Is GOP4Me one of those joke Republican apologists or a real one? The joke ones are so good on these threads I can never tell the difference.
stickler
The Bus Fairies. Who were out on strike that week, it seems.
Jorge
Hi Lee,
Everyone knew that when Joseph Wilson was investigating the levees down in NOLA that is was nothing more than a paid vacationa arrnaged by his wife. All he did was sip hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s and talk to some local government folk.
Lis Riba
They already have.
Precisely. According to Newsweek:
Lee
So based on Joe Wilson’s investigation it must have been a slam dunk that NOLA was going to be ok.
/starting to confuse myself with the sarcasm ;)
TBone
Bush was warned in “urgent terms of the potential magnitude of the storm.” Everyone says he was fully engaged in monitoring the storm; there’s no ambiguity there. Here is what the transcript said he was briefed by the chief Meteorologist just before the storm – the most accurate assessment/guess before it hit. Pay attention to the highlighted parts:
The chief meteorologist says the storm models predict “minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane” – that’s the factual portion of his spiel. The President is briefed that there will be minimal flooding. Next comes the subjective analysis part of the briefing where he expresses concern that the levees “could be overrun.” Well no shit Sherlock, and the wind could blow down some houses too; but what did the computer model say?
He doesn’t know for sure. So the President hears that. Wow. Sure the weatherman throws in the part about concern; everyone is concerned Mr. Weatherman, but you just told him data that points to the contrary didn’t you?
So, the Federal Government knows this storm is big. The President realizes that his man Brown – head of FEMA – is fully aware of the magnitude of the situation. The President knows he has entrusted Brown with the leadership of FEMA, and has delegated responsibility of its functions as well. President Bush is clearly shown supervising his subordinate leaders in the tapes, which is the responsibility of a leader. Brown tells the Boss that “Everyone within FEMA is now virtually on call.” The President hears that the total capability of his Federal Emergency Management capability is being utilized. What else can the Fed do at this point? Hire more FEMA people? Wave the magic wand?
After the hurricane, everyone is quick to point the finger of blame squarely on the Fed for the effects of the aftermath, but look at this:
Damn, Louisiana’s emergency preparedness deputy said that FEMA had been working with Louisiana well before the disaster…and PRAISES THEM for it. Things that make you go “Hmmmmm”. Maybe FEMA isn’t on their ass; could it be the State and Local governments response that was screwed up?
So, even though the storm was going to be so bad that the levees would break (even though the weather dude couldn’t predict that), Mayor Count Chocula and the Governor didn’t see fit to evacuate their own people. Mr. Brown was concerned about it. Why didn’t they do something to save their own people? If the President was supposed to “do something” (and he did – FEMA was fully engaged well before and during the storm according to the transcripts, AND the LA. state emergency dude), then why didn’t the State and Local folks feel compelled to do the same?
Seems like you were aware of everything too Mr. Chocolate. Why was your response so slow?
(Note: quotes from this posts link and this link )
GOP4Me
Well, now that some leaker has violated national security interests already by divulging this video, the White House has to perform damage control. Clearly, it’s not in the national interest for the American people to lose faith in their government, so clearly, the White House must now release information it would otherwise be loath to part with. If salvaging a government’s reputation for competence in the face of adversity is “scoring political points” in your book, then so be it. As for me, I think the credibility of a wartime President who is the only American capable of saving us from AQ is far more important than the residual security value of a few internal memos and emails, now that some Commie rat has already helped the moonbat media circus onslaught. To each his own, I suppose.
Lee
That is not even a believable lie. Who believes for a second that it is still a manual process to record incoming calls?
GOP4Me
Yes, I have to give DougJ credit. He is good at what he does, obfuscating the issue and hamstringing debate. That’s why I despise him so immensely.
Tim F.
People,
Big links bork the margins. Use the hyperlink button.
Par R
The AP is trumpeting a story that’s a yawn, one with no “there there.” Of course Bush knew a hurricane was coming. The whole world knew. With the active cooperation of the national media, the state and national Democrats were planning to politicize the storm at least two days before it struck and carried out that plan with stunning precision.
The media got it wrong yet again on Katrina. The notion that the experts warned of levee breaches is nothing more than a hack job initiated by the AP and continued by the rest of the Exempt Media even after the source material has proven it false.
The New York Times has the full transcript of the August 28 and 29 meetings, but the following excerpts are illuminating in terms of demonstrating how totally phony the AP story is that Tim is pushing in this post:
“MAX MAYFIELD: … The rest of the track we have 10 to 15 feet, in a few areas up to 16 feet. At least glimpsed it out, and Louisiana can talk a little bit more about this than I can, but it looks like the Federal levies [sic] around the City of New Orleans will not have been (incomprehensible) any breaches to.”
That certainly doesn’t sound like a warning — and this was on the day the levees broke. That transcript clearly shows that the conference considered the storm surge and precipitation runoff to be the major threats of flooding in New Orleans. The possibility of breaches, even on the 29th, had been discounted.
The transcript from the August 28th meeting talked more about levees, but in the same vein, and this time no one mentions the word “breach”. Starting on page 5, Max Mayfield again talks about the dangers of Lake Pontchartrain, but only in the context of the winds created a surge that could overtop the levees:
“One of the valleys here in Lake Pontchartrain, we’ve got on our forecast track, if it maintains its intensity: about 12 1/2 feet of storm surge in the lake. The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levies? And the currrent track and the forecast we have now suggests there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we’re — we’ve always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within 20 percent.
“If that track were to deviate just a little bit to the west, it would — it makes all the difference in the world. I do expect that there will be some of the levies over top even out here in the western portions where the airport is. We’ve got valleys that can’t overtop some of the levies.
“The problem we’re going to have here — remember, the winds go counterclockwise around the center of the hurricane. So if the really strong winds clip Lake Pontchartrain, that’s going to pile some of that water from Lake Pontchartrain over on the south side of the lake. I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levies will be topped or not, but that’s obviously a very, very grave concern.”
Again, the entire briefing that related to levees only focused on the effects of the wind on Lake Pontchartrain and its effect in pushing water over the top of the levees. Mayfield never even addressed the possibility of breaches in the levee walls.
As Al said above, “Next.”
Steve
Give it up. The spoof is exposed.
Lee
GOP4Me aaaahhhhh the sweet smell of facism.
GOP4Me
F-ck you, Steve.
Whatever, RINO.
Steve
Give it up!
Ancient Purple
So, how long can you goosestep before your legs get tired, GOP?
AkaDad
Powerline has lost what little credibility they had after posting this.
This has to be, one of the most absurd and ludicrous statements I have heard, regarding Katrina. I can’t believe anyone reads that Powerline blog.
ppGaz
If you think the Bush-Katrina tape is hilarious, wait until you see this
That’s my gift to you for today.
Otto Man
Yeah, it’s the fault of state and local leaders for believing the president when he said the federal government was “fully prepared” to deal with the storm and ready to move in supplies and manpower at a moment’s notice.
I don’t think anybody anticipated what a colossal fuck-up this president would be.
ppGaz
Have you met Darrell and MacBuckets?
GOP4Me
I’m not going to stop speaking my mind just because it annoys you, Steve.
My grandfather killed Nazis for 4 years just as I’m assuming yours did, Ancient Purple. Godwin’s Law or no Godwin’s Law, that’s an inappropriate comment.
ppGaz
Sure, but wasn’t that in Mississippi?
Steve
Dude, you’ve become the guy in the commercial with the Snickers bars on his head. No one other than a spoofer would say some of these things. Just give it up!
ppGaz
I thought it was John.
I think the line is:
“We think you should take the Snickers bars off your head. We know you’re a liberal.”
Lee
Please do not associate me with ANY politcal party.
Lee
(comments need edits)
Interesting that you would associate facism with someone being a ‘real’ Republican. Not sure if that says more about you or Republicans.
GOP4Me
???
??? Snicker’s Bar???
?What in God’s name are you people yammering about?
Is exotic African wildlife an acceptable alternative?
LITBMueller
Hmmm… a few things I might have said if I was Bush at the teleconference:
“I hear your concerns, Brownie. What are we doing about it?”
“What would happen if the levees did top?”
“Are all our assets in place? Do we need more?”
“What can I do from my end to help you?”
“Should we get those people out of the Dome, Brownie?”
“Holy shit!”
Steve
“Oh no, I’m so confused.” Just give it up already!
GOP4Me
Wasn’t associating anything with Fascism, I was just being as casually dismissive of you as you were in your insults to me. Fight laziness with laziness… or not. Whatever.
ppGaz
You might try looking into the modern meaning of the word “whoosh.”
gratefulcub
Breached vs Overtopped.
Is this not emblematic of the administration? Maybe no one predicted that the levees were going to be breached and NO was going to be completely flooded. But, it had to have been somewhere in the range of possibilities. 10% no flooding, 40% minor overtopping, 40% major overtopping, 10% major flooding caused by breaching. Everyone’s biggest fear before the storm was failure of the levees. They find someone that says “They won’t breach”, and they proceed with that assumption.
They were 100% sure there would be no insurgency in Iraq. So, they didn’t plan for the possible outcome of an insurgency.
Where is the contingency planning? Why do they always believe the happy talk?
They come right out and tell us that what we need is ‘optimism.’ I need some realism. Someone to accept that the worst might happen. Failure IS an option in Iraq. Failure is always an option, regardless of how optimistic you are.
GOP4Me
What? I don’t follow.
AkaDad
ppGaz,
Thanks for that link, that was pretty funny.
Pb
Perhaps we’ll never know why the gulf coast wasn’t entirely evacuated, or why President Nagin didn’t pre-emptively exercise his war powers to do so.
Steve
He’s doing an impression of the Snickers guy. “??What??” As everyone walks sadly away…
GOP4Me
For the last frigging time, WHO IS THE SNICKERS GUY???!
Pooh
Anyone else noticing how “now one could have predicted” is morphing into “no one could have guaranteed?”
Lee
Excellent point Pooh.
I can’t guarantee that I’ll be alive tomorrow morning, so I guess it is a night of hookers and booze for me ;)
SeesThroughIt
Sean Hannity.
You know, GOP4Me’s real-vs.-spoofer situation is a tough one to call. He really toes that line quite well. I’ve been leaning toward the “Sadly, he’s being serious” side, but after his performance in this thread, I’m now leaning toward the spoofer side.
GOP4Me
Have fun, but maybe you should think about stoping by a church and seeking redemption for your sins instead. An eternity of Hellfire is hardly worth an evening of transient and overrated pleasure.
Otto Man
An ad for Snickers, where a balding man in denial tries to cover up his baldness with Snickers bars. His co-workers stage an intervention, telling him they know he’s bald and his cover-up isn’t fooling anyone. It ends with him crying in his car to the sounds of “Make Your Own Kind of Music.”
GOP4Me
It’s not my fault I don’t have any idea what you kooks are talking about with Snicker’s bars. What the heck kind of a reference is that? If I throw out some obscure quote from Saint Anselm, are you all supposed to immediately grasp it?
GOP4Me
Thank you. I hadn’t seen the commercial.
Now, was that so hard, people?
ppGaz
You can rest tonight, knowing that we will immediately grasp just about anything you can put out there, compadre.
We’re here for ya.
GOP4Me
That’s a very weird and disturbing thing to say, peepee.
But if I’m misunderstanding it in some way, I offer my apologies and my thanks. I think.
gratefulcub
GOP4Me,
is that your blog that your name links to?
Were you complaining about the left being partisan and indoctrinated earlier in this thread? That we all just HATE bush?
Ancient Purple
I salute your grandfather’s service in the cause of defeating the Nazis.
Unfortunately, the good works of your grandfather do not provide cover for your character.
If the goose-stepping boot fits…
Lines
The smoking gun has come in the form of a dead city and we have assholes like Tbone defending the indefensible.
Congrats, we’ve reached the lowest we can go.
GOP4Me
What’s wrong with what I wrote? Don’t most conservatives support a conservative President?
This, coming from a member of the anti-war, objectively pro-Saddam left. Rich.
I suppose you’ll tell me that it’s inappropriate to call you pro-Saddam. In reply to which, I can simply point back to your post and recite…
Did the Baathists goosestep, too, or was that just the Nazis and the Soviets?
ppGaz
This, from a person who takes my initials and turns them into a crude reference to private parts?
GFY, dude.
VidaLoca
OK, that does it for me.
Jorge, the answer to your question: this cannot be serious.
gratefulcub
Name one conservative thing he has done.
Iraq is a liberal pipedream.
Fiscal conservative?
Have you not noticed the jumping of ship by ‘conservatives’? Only the partisans are left.
gratefulcub
For starters:
I suppose you don’t want us to make empty threats, do you? So, you are arguing for nuclear retalliation, and asking what’s wrong with that statement?
gratefulcub
My original point was: I read some of your comments. You riducule others arguments by using the sarcastic tone indicating that you believe others are indocrinated leftists that can’t see past their partisan hatred. I then follow your link to a post that is as blindly partisan as any I have seen, followed by one that is laying the groundwork for blaming the left for Bush’s failure in Iraq.
Alanis, that is the definition of Irony
Jorge
So, the intelligence failed Bush again.
What he was supposed to do? The hurricane guy told him that the current model – which was about 20% accurate – showed that there would be only slight flooding. Sure, the guy then added that the real unknown factor was whether the storm surges caused the levees be able to contain the water. But when you are planning for a potential disaster, you don’t speculate on worst case scenarios. You plan for a hurricane with the scenario you have, not the scenario you don’t have.
Because see, we didn’t vote the President in to have any foresight. We didn’t hire him to plan for worst case scenarios. We didn’t send him to Washington to read a book on hurricanes on his.
We voted him in to sit around a ranch in Texas and to only pay attention to the highlighted materials of the briefings given to him. And to then to pick the least imaginative course of action.
And yes, Fema was doing the best they could. The best they could with a Horsey lawyer at the helm and a slashed budget. Goodness, I remember watching the folks trapped at the government building in NO on the Thursday after the hit on CNN. Then I remember not an hour later hearing Chertoff on NPR saying that those reports were false because he didn’t know anything about them. And I remember the fact that even though the NO papers website had reported a breech in the levees the Monday night of the hurricane, Bush opted to go on his little cake cutting, guitar playing photo op on that Tuesday. Seriously, if Bush and co were relying on newspapers for their information, couldn’t they at least check the local papers?
I thought Bush was going to be the CEO president. Well, imagine a CEO using this excuse after a monumental disaster to the company, “My team and I did everything we could to prepare for one scenario. Unfortunately, we failed to account for what our interanl experts warned us would happen in a worst case scenario. We had a failure of imagination.”
VidaLoca
They sure do. Endlessly, mindlessly.
Can you bring back Nixon? Please? Anything, anything but this…
Jorge
Which is why I’m mystified by the fact that you guys have followed someone with a classically liberal foreign policy and that has expanded the role and size of government more than any POTUS since Johnson. Or are we going for the post 9/11 definition of conservative – A supporter of George Bush?
Seriously – you guys do realize that Bush’s foreign policy and use of military force is closer to historically liberal POTUS like Wilson, FDR, Truman and Johnson than historically conservative ones like Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan?
GOP4Me
Sorry I’m not into some weird sexual fantasy you have, peepee.
You’re right, I was joking when I told him to have fun. You can never really have fun when your life is so empty and hopeless that you have to fill the time with alcohol and women of loose morals. If you don’t feel the same way, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I can name you two in a heartbeat.
1. Roberts
2. Alito
Well, it’s not like we wouldn’t give them time to evacuate first. Or give them relief aid afterward, just like we always do for people that want to kill us.
Sorry, I despise Alanis Morisette. Enough sappy songs about hitchhiking or God-knows-what. A liberal friend in college made me watch some movie where she played God, too. Talk about tripe. This is the ideological wellspring of liberalism? Movies like “Dogma?” No wonder 51% of America thinks you’re morally defunct.
chopper
Well, imagine a CEO using this excuse after a monumental disaster to the company, “My team and I did everything we could to prepare for one scenario. Unfortunately, we failed to account for what our interanl experts warned us would happen in a worst case scenario. We had a failure of imagination.”
i know exactly what would happen. million-dollar bonuses all around!
in the case of the CEO president, he gives out Medals of Freedom(R) instead.
my god, it all makes sense now.
Steve
The verdict is in, friends. Spoof, spoof, spoof, spoof, spoof.
And seriously, dude, it was an A+ job.
gratefulcub
Ummm. She sang a song about irony in which nothing was actually ironic. You are.
Are you aware of the reprecussions of using a nuclear weapon? Where would a country evacuate to? Aid? Are you kidding me? If we drop a nuclear weapon on Iran, whoever lives through it will spend the rest of their lives killing anyone that looks ‘western’. People hate to be occupied, they hate being nuked even more.
We just aren’t as powerful as you believe. We can alter the way nations behave, we can’t manipulate the hearts and minds of a billion people with our military. Well, we can, but not in a positive way.
chopper
This is the ideological wellspring of liberalism? Movies like “Dogma?”
since you guys got the ‘left behind’ series, i wouldn’t talk if i were you.
VidaLoca
Well, that’s charitiable of us.
“Why? Because we’re Christians(tm), goddammit, that’s why!”
gratefulcub
Steve,
You know this how? He is good.
Vlad
The Bus Fairies. Who were out on strike that week, it seems.
Probably out protesting in favor of gay marriage, the pansies.
StupidityRules
gratefulclub asked:
With God on their side, why should they waste time by making plans for something going wrong?
But after all these f*ckups they probably should ask themselves if God actually is on their side. Cause it might be that other guy.
Pb
GOP4Me might be a spoof, and he might not be, but I stopped caring about that when he showed himself to be a lying weasel.
gratefulcub
My God is bigger than your god.
Perry Como
We haven’t seen the baby eating ceremony yet.
Lee
I gotta go with the spoof as well.
Missing the implied sarcasm of my statement was last sign.
Whoever is behind it, I am impressed. Very good job.
Steve
Seriously, raise your hands, everyone who still believes GOP4Me is for real. I’ve caught a lot of Internet spoofers over the years, so I might be ahead of the curve, but I really think he’s made this one very easy for us.
CaseyL
Hey! I liked Dogma!
Ancient Purple
You can call me “pro-Saddam” all you wish. I will be content knowing that such allegations come from a Bush sycophant and goose-stepping moron like yourself.
(Although I am also now leaning toward the fact that you are just a bad spoofer since no human being could really be as idiotic as you are.)
Lines
This is almost like a coke-snorting Bush shot Nola in the face, then blamed Nola for getting in the way.
Ancient Purple
I acutally saw a bumpersticker on a car last week that said, “How sad I am missing Nixon.”
For myself, I really want to get a ribbon magnet for the back of my car that says, “I support the $2 Chinese ribbon magnet makers.”
Perry Como
After reading sites like LGF, Redstate and FreeRepublic, I often wonder if the “conservative” movement is for real. GOP4Me seems like another idiotarian — better to mock than engage directly.
The Other Steve
This is one thing that bugs me. People trying to pretend they are smart by questioning something they clearly have not researched and don’t understand. My brother pulled this one on me, using this same claim. So I researched it, as the song seemed reasonably correct to me when I first heard it.
I found this, which I believe offers a concise examination of the dictionary definition of the word irony:
http://www.geocities.com/eirig/
The key point is, the word irony historically has referred to actions of fate… things happening which mock what you expect to happen.
Perhaps we should ask… Isn’t it moronic?
ppGaz
Wow, now there is a story you can tell the grandkids!
Andrew
He was dropping hints a few threads ago.
But here’s where it gets interesting:
1) John Cole gets sick. And then “busy.”
2) GOP4Me arrives.
Coincidence? I think he’s in the last throes, if you will, of the Republican party.
Lee
If you do this on a regular basis you are a braver man than me. :D
Al Maviva
Why, FEMA’s 2500 employees, of course. It’s not like they had anything better to do. For the record, everybody involved in the response & relief effort, not just the lying lying lie-ey liarly liars of the lying Bushlie Liedministration, but also the touchy-feely NGOs and the states and local government officials of both parties involved in response & relief have testified that it was the biggest hurricane response and relief effort in history. LGEN Honore testified a week ago that the logistics of the military side of the operation, including the Nat Guard and Title 10 military involvement was the “largest military movement on domestic soil since the civil war.” The Coast Guard rescued roughly 80,000 people via helicopter. The scale is beyond comprehension. Should the government pre-emptively roll out that many assets – an order of magnitude more, actually – whenever it is possible that a worst case scenario *could* occur? This is a non-trivial question, because many worst case scenarios could happen every single year, but few do.
The meteorological prediction for flooding was that mild flooding was to be expected, but that it could possibly go much worse; and the response, that was wholly inadequate according to every expert here, was to prepare to deal with mild flooding, though DOD’s recent testimony indicates that they had prepared for big troop movements as early as Saturday before. That’s a bit easier to do when you have several thousand staff officers milling around CONUS who live to plan, plan to live. I’m sure everybody here believes that what the Administration did, and is doing in the rebuilding effort is utterly inadequate – yet was one of the largest relief efforts in history, and unprecedented domestically. When exactly should the government trigger a $200 billion dollar process based on predictions of mild flooding? Should any prediction of “mild flooding but could be a lot worse” trigger national mobilization?
If I draw the correct lesson for the Administration from this, then it should calibrate all of its security and preparedness efforts at preventing worse case scenarios, rather than relying on forecasts of what is likely and preparing for the likely. It sounds good to prepare for worst case scenarios, but I’m not sure that’s a good way to govern, or to live your life. If it were, we’d all be living in well stocked bunkers in the hills…
I give you again, Avian flu. How should we prevent an outbreak here? The worst case scenario is 50 or 100 million dead in the U.S., if it jumps species. HHS is putting together all sorts of quarantine and treatment measures, and probably (I don’t know but guess) planning on killing lots of birds and other critters if it hits here. But if Bush really cared, if he didn’t hate black people and birds so much, shouldn’t we just kill all the animals and prevent anybody from coming to the U.S. from Europe or Asia? It seems to me that if we’re doing decision-making based on worst case scenario, that’s how to handle it.
I realize PPGaz just crapped his pants in anger at that, and Slide is about to call me names, but if Bush should have prepared for absolute worst case scenario for mere bad weather, shouldn’t all potential emergencies be prepared for with the same urgency? Michael Brown testified that he dealt with roughly 80 Stafford Act declared federal emergencies prior to Katrina – how did the government prepare for and react to them? Probzbly totally inadequately; if everybody’s needs were met, then there wasn’t available an on-the-spot excess of capacity to handle worst cases…
So why not get going with some activism to get the government to treat bird flu with the same approach being advocated, retrospectively, for Katrina? Maybe 1000 people died during the Katrina disaster, some large subset actually killed by the storm, others dying with varying degrees of Katrina-related causation. Yet isn’t avian flu a much more serious threat? 120 people recently died of it in Turkey in a tiny little outbreak met with draconian measures. How much worse would it be here?
For that matter, why are we pussyfooting around with terrorism, given the worst case scenarios there? Shouldn’t we have the whole country on lockdown, if Bush was competent and actually cared about the country?
Or should we act drastically with respect to *potential* weather disasters even if relatively mild problems are posed, but only take minimal steps where security and public health are threatened? In truth, the dangers posed by Avian Flu and WMD terrorist attack are probably worse than the losing 1000 lives total, assuming that the worst-case-scenario dictates appropriate planning and response.
moflicky
LITBM,
well, I suppose Bush should have been a New Orleans Levee disaster expert as part of his job description, eh? He’s supposed to have people to ask the right questions.
The levees being topped vs. breached are two very different things. if you weren’t such an idiot, you would know the difference. I’ll make it simple for you:
levees topped: bad.
levees breached: very very very very very very bad.
if you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about… oh never mind. you won’t even understand this.
don’t like an answer, change the subject. “war!, bush lied, people died!!!”
Historically, disasters have always been handled locally, with assistance from the fed after the fact. suddenly, the rules of the game are changed in mid-disaster and the fed is expected to react to not only their responsibilities (which they did poorly) but they’ve got to take the blame for the local’s incompetance too?
convenient for your argument ain’t it?
yeah, yeah, tell me more fairy tales.
SeesThroughIt
My god just housed your god in basketball. Perhaps your god is bigger, but he really needs to work on his medium-range game.
Perry Como, sites like RedState, Free Republic, etc. are what give spoofers plausible deniability, you know? A good spoofer sounds like the people who hang out at those sites–only the people who hang out at those sites aren’t kidding. Like I said before, reading sites like blogsforbush made me hesitant to call DougJ a spoofer right away because he sounded so much like the people on that site.
Lee
Dear God you have no idea what it really means to be an American do you?
Lines
moflicky:
breached vs. topped is NOT different. Topping the levee caused some of the levees to topple and be breached. The main breach was caused by a loose barge that hit the levee around 2am.
Trying to play the word game is like saying someone is only mostly dead.
When Bush says “we are prepared” in that meeting, did you even hear it? Or did you not watch it? Do any of the facts presented in this story (not the thread) make you think that maybe, just maybe, Bush is responsible? Maybe he’s responsible for playing the guitar while people were drowning? Maybe he was responsible for saying “heckofa job, Brownie!” without even knowing that the situation was grim?
Or do you not care about what Bush is responsible for? You only seem to care about what you can blame on everyone else, how you can deflect, and when you can’t deflect, you defend.
I notice you don’t put down any factual occurances of this happening in a situation where a disaster was predicted 48 hours ahead of time. I’ll give you some time to think about it.
ppGaz
Did you say something?
Seriously, do you think people actually read those long things you post? I’d rather read the terms and conditions booklets I keep getting from credit card companies, they’re more entertaining.
RonB
HAHAHAHA!! Maybe this is someone from Landover Baptist. You got it goin’ on, GOP!!
Perry Como
At this point I think all wingnuts are spoofs. It’s hard to believe that a person can be that genuinely stupid.
GOP4Me
You people are hopeless. Why do I waste my time?
I go away for an hour, and what do I get? 10 people thinking I’m DougJ, 1 who thinks I’m a bad impersonation of DougJ, 1 thinking I’m from Landover Baptist (as far as I know, that’s some kind of spoof religious site, right?), and unless I’ve overlooked one, 0 wanting to discuss anything substantive.
I try to educate you, really I do. But it seems like many of you are a lost cause. I don’t want to give up hope, but sometimes it seems like I almost have to. I think I may have to take the rest of the afternoon off, and go find solace in something else. Anything else, I don’t know. I’m at work, so building a snowman or reading the Bible are both pretty much out. And Lord knows WORK is out of the question at a time like this. Maybe I’ll go check out this Landover website, I’ve never really spent too much time there before. As for you people, I’ll get back to you in a couple days or so.
LITBMueller
Moflicky, go check out my other comment above, which includes this:
Now, use some common sense: a levee breaks in specific areas, causing flooding. Overtopping can be as catastophic as along an entire levee. Both would cause widespread flooding. Especially considering the predicted storm surge and the height of the existing levees.
Whether someone tells you overtopping or breaching, your immediate response should be, “Oh,shit!”
So…to recap for those with reading comprehension difficulties: asfar as the Corp of Engineers was concerned, overtopping was just as bad as a breach – each caused 10-20 feet of flooding.
I suggest before calling me an idiot, you either put up some links proving that I am, or you actually do some research instead of parroting GOP talking points.
Tom
“Needless to say, this video came from somebody who has a beef with the president.”
This video was sent out by the White House on August 28.
Pb
Al Maviva,
No, Al, they were actually very busy making sure that trucks of ice and temporary trailers didn’t actually get anywhere that might need them…
…Mission Accomplished!
Pb
GOP4Me,
Yeah, without you around, I never would have found out about the right of the government to declare seditious traitors as enemy combatants and indefinitely hold them at Guantanamo Bay for exercising their First Amendment rights to spew both factual information and opinion, thereby giving aid and comfort to the enemy… what will we do without your guidance?
Ancient Purple
Please feel free to take all the time in the world.
Steve
Note that GOP4Me never comes out and says he’s not a spoof. He just stomps his feet a lot and says he’s not DougJ. But he never denies being a spoofer in the spirit of DougJ.
Celcus
Late to the party…but
As nearly any resident of New Orleans knows:
OVERTOPPING OF THE LEVEE SYSTEM IS POTENTIALLY WORSE THAN A BREACH
The worse case scenario (yes, a lot worse than what actually happened) is an overtopped levee system, known as “filling the bowl”. It would have flooded 100% of the city of New Orleans, not just 80%, up to the the 25′ height of the Mississippi River levees. The French Quarter, which remained dry, could have seen over 20′ of flood water. It would have also flooded all of the adjacent Jefferson Parish suburbs to up to 30′ depths. The overtopping scenerio is unofficially know as KYAG (kiss your ass goodbye). Had Katrina hit to the west of the city, rather than the east this scenerio could well had taken place. THAT was the worst case, not the breaches. Breaches allow water in and out again, not so in overtopping. In fact some of the breached levees actually mitigated the flooding during Katrina; the industrial canal breaches allowed flood water to flow out of the city into the lower water level of the Mississippi.
You can read more about the different hurricane projections here.
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/thebigone_1.html
The whole series is here:
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/
Tim F.
Bzzt. Does FEMA have 2500 licensed bus drivers? In case you were wondering the answer is no. Let’s imagine that Nagin asked 2500 unlicensed drivers to transport the city of New Orleans – where exactly? – and one of those buses t-boned a church group and blew up. Nagin would be criminally liable for each blown-up citizen. Not to mention the lawsuits, which I imagine would pretty much never end.
Nagin already had every licensed driver transporting people to the Superdome. That’s a trip that a bus can make four or five times in a day and he got far from everybody. Now imagine the same number of drivers heading to, say, Houston. That’s not a trip that a driver can make very many times. Considering the number of people to move, folks would basically have to figure out which member of their family to save while the rest fend for themselves on foot.
In fact FEMA did have a contract with a busing company to take care of just such a scenario. An unqualified and inexperienced company that landed its contract through political connections.
So in fact there is a busing scandal. It points right back to FEMA.
Otto Man
Could any of the people here who are insisting that the poor federal government didn’t have the manpower or the resources to handle a hurricane disaster like Katrina please explain how those same forces did just fine when four hurricanes hit Florida in 2004?
They had more than enough supplies preposition then, and more than enough people on the ground. Christ, President Bush went there personally to hand out water bottles to evacuees. It seems the administration can be perfectly competent when the disaster strikes a battleground state in an election year.
I guess the people in this government can only do their jobs right if their jobs are on the line?
ppGaz
Neither did DougJ at first. Who gives a fig?
You have John Cole here who loves to troll the lefties on a regular basis. The man is at least as liberal as I am if not more so, on every social issue that I’ve seen go by here. So, is the whole blog a spoof? Have you seen the name of the blog? This is not exactly the Congressional Record here.
Steve
Well, hey, before the blog turns into 10% spoofers and 90% liberals irately knocking down everything the spoofers say assuming that it’s for real, I thought I should say something.
ppGaz
Steve, you can divine my email address from the first text you see on my url.
Send me email please.
croatoan
The overtopping caused the breaches.
Blue Shark
…Dear John;
…I used to think this was a middle-right blog…after reading all the comments on this thread…I’de have to say…You have been invaded by Leftist Radicals who obviously Hate America.
…And by virtue of that fact, you are now a threat to national security…look for that IRS audit any day now.
Andrew
But that’s FEMA’s fault, not George W. Bush’s fault. Your liberal hatred of the president is quite clear.
Now, on to reality:
This isn’t true at all. The Mississippi is much higher than the canals off the lake. Anyone who has been to NO has walked UP to the river and looked down on the french quarter and the rest of town. The ACoE maintains those levees, IIRC, whereas the breached levees were state projects.
However, you larger point can be correct. In some flooded areas after the floods, levees were intentionally breached to drain flood waters.
Celcus
Indeed during the spring one can look up at the ships, but in August the river is much lower. The level of the river varies, of course, throughout the year, being highest in the spring due to northern snow melt. The river levees protect up to a 20′ stage, but Lake Pontchartrain is roughly at sea level under normal conditions.
The storm surge generated by Katrina changed all of this. I can’t find the exact level of lake Pontchartrain at the time of the breach but the 17th street canal flood wall/levee (which is one of the one’s that failed) was slightly more than 9′ above sea level. It was not overtopped, and the water did not get within a foot top. So water coming in was at least 6-7′ above sea level at the maximum. NOAA lists the river stage on August 24 at 2.5 feet. Storm surge was not driven up the Mississippi, due to its direction and the eye remaining to the east of the city.
I can’t locate the like to the Times-Picayunne article, but in the maximum hight of the flood, the lake was following gravity and flowing out the industrial canal breaches to the river. It is sad, but it is suspected that a percentage of the 2000 still missing were washed out to sea this way.
If the city had only been flooded to the level of the river far less would have been inundated
Davebo
Here’s an idea!
Simulated Telephone Call…
Yesser, he’s on the line.
Hey Jim it’s Dick. How ya doin?
Fine Sir. Enjoyed you out at the ranch. All Bill’s gonna be fine don’t worry.
Well listen Jim, I’m sure you’ve heard of that mere bad weather they’re having down in the Gulf. You guys have lots of platforms and semisub rigs down there, don’t ya?
Yesir we do.
Well, what’s your plan? About this mere bad weather and all?
You kiddin? We bailed!
Al Maviva
I’m not shocked you have trouble reading things longer than a sentence or two, ppGaz. Your admission makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it.
For everybody else, since we lost ppGaz after the first comma, NBC did a feature on Mike Brown and the videos tonight. Anybody catch it? The meteorologist in the videos, Mayfield, clarified today that they anticipated minor flooding resulting from overtopped levees, and that nobody seriously considered the possibility of breeched levees. NBC’s interest seemed to be playing “gotcha” on Mike Brown who just last week hammered Bush for not having a clue. Brown was captured on one of the videos praising Bush for being engaged and asking the right questions about the levees, etc.
Steve
That’s an awesome gotcha. I mean, I would totally expect to see the head of FEMA slamming the President on videotape, telling everyone “The Chimp is on vacation, we’re all on our own!!!” I can’t imagine any scenario in which someone would be more likely to be honest and candid than when they’re asked about their boss’s job performance while on camera.
ppGaz
A sentence or two?
Irony is dead.
Ancient Purple
Shorter Al Maviva (reduced from 19 paragraphs): I am always right.
DougJ
Imagine if Osama had been in power. He could have launched an attack against us while we were still reeling from Katrina. It’s terrifying to think about. Imagine a squadron of Al Qaeda fighters — Sean Penn, Al Gore, Aaron Broussard — boating around the gulf coast, detonating suitcase nukes. That’s what we would have faced if Kerry had been elected.
Al Maviva
Ancient Purple, nice dodge. I got hammered above for citing the transcripts and pointing out that there is a distinction between predictions of water overtopping the levees leading to mild flooding, and levee breaches. When the meteorologist appearing on the video made the same point, I thought it was fair game to raise it again. I’m not always right; in fact, I’m frequently wrong if I don’t take the time to closely read something and research questionable issues raised in it. But I am right on that point. Cheers.
LITBMueller
Huh. Guess SOMEBODY anticipated it!
demimondian
Sorry, but you’re still wrong about this. As I said here, for the levees in question, there was no difference. The ACoE had already proven that during the Pam exercises. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the seawalls weren’t built to spec but the experts on that topic had already spoken. There was no reason for Mayfield to know that, but the people in the room who did have a reason to know did act as if the levees were going to fail.
demimondian
Hey, John, what’s with editing out links? “Here” should read “here”
chefrad
“That’s what we would have faced if Kerry had been elected.”
The Baldwin brothers, crossing the border illegally, dressed as the Three Amigos!
Dodd
Um, no:
Even the AP has now had to admit it got the story wrong:
Dodd
So, given that the AP has corrected their story, rendering the post incorrect, can we expect an update making note of the correction?
moflicky
Lines and LITBm,
I’ve never heard anyone say, ANYWHERE, that a topping of the levees would cause 20 feet of flooding.
for one thing, 20 feet is impossible in new orleans, and even with the breaches, with nothing to hold back water, the highest flood depth was around 12 feet.
so you must have pulled that number out of your ass.
If the levees hadn’t breached, how long do you think it would have taken to pump out the floodwaters resulting from a topping? a few days? probably less?
On the other hand, a hole in several levee locations is a very different thing – the water continuously poored in for a couple weeks. WEEKS! not hours – which would have occured from a cat-5 storm surge topping the levees. In this scenario, pumping water out was fruitless, with water flowing in faster than a thousand pumps could drain it.
is this so freaking hard to understand? are you all this daft? To say that ‘topping’ and ‘breaching’ are the same thing is simply intellectual dishonesty – it doesn’t fit your idea of what happened, so you dismiss it out of hand.
As to the local vs. federal response, ask Florida how much immediate help they get from FEMA. Two years ago, they got hit with 3 major hurricanes within a month or two, and you never heard them complain about the federal response.
In conclusion, there’s plenty to criticize about the response, local, state AND federal. But we are talking about a disaster of unprecedented proportions, and you point at Bush as being the sole man responsible.
He’s not a disaster expert for god’s sake, he’s a politician.
I also think it’s pretty funny for all the lefties who criticized every word, deed, email, etc. from Brownie a few months ago are now rallying behind him now that he’s willing to point his finger at the one true source of evil in the world.
it boggles the mind.
demimondian
So, moflicky, you don’t read, say National Geographic? Money quote:
That’s from the 2004 Hurricane Pam exercises, dude — you know, the ones that the ACoE ran?
That dog won’t hunt. In fact, none of your do[d]g[e]s are going to hunt: the evidence was there, it was well understood, and, boy howdy, those da?ned reality-based types keep being right.
moflicky
then why, pray tell, didn’t we see 25 foot flooding when the water flowed for weeks?
Celcus
Because the eye of the storm passed to the east of the city.
The “filling the bowl” scenario involves a cat 5 on a track that approximately follows the Mississippi from the mouth and move to the west of the city. This brings storm surge up the river, and essentially overtops the Lake Pontchartrain levees dumping it into the “bowl” of New Orleans, and the Neighboring Jefferson Parish. Katrina’s storm surge was large enough to have done this, had the track been different. The levees intact, the water cannot drain out when the storm surge recedes, leaving the bowl full.
Here is the theory, again:
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/thebigone_1.html
By Aug. 28th it was clear it would not track up the mouth of the river, likely avoiding the doomsday scenario, but the prediction was hardly encouraging:
http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/library-88/1125213019249320.xml?nola
Ben Thurdunthat
[quote]that which is not acknowledged….[/quote]
….will eventually bite you in the @$$.
I think some old engineer who’d attended one of those many scenario-classes that “Civil Defense” trainers put on might’ve said that about the levees in New Orleans……
Can anyone please find and post some stuff showing that the Democratic leaders of that fine city EVER asked for any money to reinforce those levees in all the years they stood? Or that their colleagues in the so-much-more-enlightened Northeast made any gestures of concern?
Can anyone please explain why NO college or university Civil Engineering class ever reported what many professors should have known?
Would it perhaps be instructive to do a search of theses and papers and find how many demonstrate full knowledge of the inevitable collapse of the levees, going back how many years?
And HOW did one of Howard Dean’s OWN, remain silent?
Click here and weep, my lefties, because this guy was campaigning for Dean in New Hampshire:
http://www.dps.state.vt.us/vem/press_091505.htm
moflicky
yes, by then it was clear. thus, “no one anticipated the breach of the levees.
thanks for playing.
Celcus
Okay, Clearly you made your case. The word “breach” not having been uttered there was no chance of flooding, or anything that might require any sort of help, mere overtopping being such a minor threat…
Except from the Aug 28th Times-Picayunne article: “A computer model run by the LSU Hurricane Center late Saturday confirmed that. It indicated the metropolitan area was poised to see a repeat of Betsy’s flooding, or worse, with storm surge of as much as 16 feet moving up the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet and topping levees in Chalmette and eastern New Orleans, and pushing water into the 9th Ward and parts of Mid-City. High water flowing from Lake Pontchartrain through St. Charles Parish also would flood over levees into Kenner, according to the model.”
Mid-City is within the city proper, the “bowl” below sea level. But no one could have anticipated flooding of the city proper.
But then, overtopping often results in breaching. From the congressional report:
“According to preliminary information from NSF, ASCE, and LSU, most of the levees and floodwall breaches on the east side of New Orleans were caused by overtopping, as the storm surge rose over the tops of the levees and/or their floodwalls and produced erosion that subsequently led to breaches…The overtopping eroded the backside of the canals, scoured out the foundations, and led to their collapse and thus major flooding of adjacent neighborhoods.”
I suppose, this could not of been anticipated either. But wait…
From the Times-Picayune series: “Unlike Bangladesh, New Orleans has hurricane levees that create a bowl with the bottom dipping lower than the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain. Though providing protection from weaker storms, the levees also would trap any water that gets inside — by breach, overtopping or torrential downpour — in a catastrophic storm.”
It continues to describe overtopping: “All of a sudden you’ll start seeing flowing water. It’ll look like a weir, water just pouring over the top,” Suhayda said. The water will flood the lakefront, filling up low-lying areas first, and continue its march south toward the river. There would be no stopping or slowing it; pumping systems would be overwhelmed and submerged in a matter of hours.” Sounds a lot like what happened, and no breach was involved. Did anybody anticipated that?
But there’s more: “Another scenario is that some part of the levee would fail,’ Suhayda said. ‘It’s not something that’s expected. But erosion occurs, and as levees broke, the break will get wider and wider. The water will flow through the city and stop only when it reaches the next higher thing.” Not something that is expected but certainly considered possible.
I suppose Bush and FEMA were at a disadvantage without access to a local paper, issue of National Geographic, or participating in the Hurricane Pam exercises. I would not be surprised that the President hadn’t anticipated a lot of things, but clearly a lot of people saw the makings of a disaster with or without the word “breach” being mentioned or even needing to occur, for that matter.
In the warning for 1011 AM CDT Sun, August 28, 2005 issued by the the National Weather Service: “Devastating damage expected…Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer. At least one half of well constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail…leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed…Power outages will last for weeks…as most power poles will be down and transformers destroyed. Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.”
I guess people were to busy talking about “overtopping” to anticipate that…
Ben Thurdunthat
Ya know, this question of the word “breach” reminds me an awwwwwfulllll lot of the problem ol’ Billy boy had with the word “sex”….
Obviously ONE of these two incidents of failures of presidential vocaublary skills merits a special prosecutor, but which one?
I mean, if ol’ Billy Boy’s momma never Tole him that was sex, then of course he didn’t know what it was…
and so, to be fair, if no one ever TOLE Bubba Dubya that the people yellin about “breach” meant flood, well hit shore caint be ol Dubya’s fault….
c’mon, guys, give the Prez a break…. he’s doin’ the bess he can!
Ben Thurdunthat
Howard Dean et al want the white house, right?
They just gave an award to one of Howard Dean’s buddies, James Matteau, who has been an authority for years on exactly the kinds of civil engineering issues that characterized the New Orleans problem, right?
The Democrats are desperate to save us all from the Republicans, right?
And they are so SURE they know what to do, right?
THEN WHY HAVE THE KERRIES AND DEANS OF THE DEMS NOT UNVEILED THEIR OWN EXPERTS?
I have it on VERY GOOD authority that James Matteau has a sister who was at UMass in 1971-1972 and who was a reporter for The Daily Collegian who went down to Washington WITH the VVAW in the marches of 1972, and that she has had her family destroyed by continuous harassment from the super-fringe left for writing reports critical of the actual polticis of the movement, and I also have it on good authority that she was married to a member of the VVAW at the time, but was one of the first feminists to keep her own last name.
So her byline is there, in those 1972 copies of The Daily Collegian.
I also have it on very good authority that James Matteau’s nephew is one of the men in this news story and that this case involved evidence that was suppressed because of family mob ties:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902EFDB1638F935A25757C0A965948260
I have it on very good authority that the bribe money that was necessary to achieve the suppression had more to do with the mob than with James Matteau’s family, but that his sister’s participation in the VVAW organization along with her budding career as an artist made her the most likely candidate to participate in fraudulent art shows in order to move that money along with other bribes necessary to keep business-as-usual out of site over in Berkshire County.
I have it on good authority that Matteau’s sister, mother of one of the accused killers, not the VVAW reporter, had turned first to her family lawyer, Andrea Nuciforo Sr, when her son was arrested and he of course immediately brought in lawyers from more eastward than Berkshire County. Andrea Nuciforo Jr is now the senator from that end of Massachusetts who is pushing a bill in the legislature last June to make the neighborhood in which the bribe-moving art shows operated into a state recognized “art zone” that will somehow be Federally acknowledged as a “no tax” zone for individuals designated as artists, and that it will be administered by Daniel O’Connell, the “Culture Commissioner” who was responsible for the art shows in that district.
Somehow, this bill is supposed to over-ride even Federal IRS authorities to collect income taxes on personal income up to $100,000 oer year per artist.
http://www.nuciforo.com/newsroom.php3?bio=272
I have it on good authority that Matteau’s sister, the former VVAW reporter, had owned The South East Street Studio in Holyoke that made silk-screen posters for Tom Rush among other musicians in Northampton, including Arlo Guthrie and The Rolling Thunder Review, and that after closing that studio she worked in other silk-screen companies and she was a color-matcher at Berkshire Handscreened Wallpapers in Pittsfield in 1992 when Hillary Clinton bought wallpaper for the White House and that she worked on that specific job and was reprimanded for trying to stop a printing error in one of the last runs that ruined the paper, making the whole job and the $200,000 that the Democrats had given that company “disappear”.
I have it on good authority that the Vermont FBI is suppressing evidence that James Matteau’s position as an envrionmental official is heavily buttressed by his willingness to run interference in family matters, and that in fact the Lenox 7 case (dubbed so by the Press in conscious allusion to the Chicago 7) was entangled with the Lenox High School teacher-rape case in which a Lenox High gym Giardini raped 5 girls, including a member of the Matteau family, the sister of Joseph Burke, one of the accused Lenox 7, and that the art show set up to run the bribes was connected through the brand-new Women’s Services Center that moved the money in a group art show in which Matteau’s VVAW sister was supposed to participate but which she backed out of, for reasons of conscience, not recognizing that her own family had mob ties and that her private revulsion at the bizarre corruption in the Women’s Services Center had anything at all to do with the Wellesleyan maoist-feminists that she and other feminists had ignored.
Most researchers into this stuff look at philosophies and don’t make criminal connections with hard core bribes etc, and most investigators of white collar crime like money laundering don’t look closely at political philosophies and notice when they conveniently reinforce each other in suppressing awareness.
The politics aroung Kerry and Sen Clinton always were extreme fringe left, but their power comes from the silent moderates, especially those who, like James Matteau, stand by and profit in a secure career that was founded on his full co-operation with the Massachusetts mob, even from his position just over the line in Vermont.
Ben Thurdunthat
What does all of the above have to do with Hurricane Katrina? Look up some of the fringier writings in the left, and you will find that certain cults have often considered natural disasters to be an opportunity to be exploited, and if you look at the nexus of the Green movements with the extreme left Dems you will see that they were in fact, just waiting for a Katrina to happen.
Bush et al is to blame for playing the role of buffoon, because in fact the ball never did leave the Democrats’ hands, and a close look at all of this will prove the corruption that in itself has absolutely NOTHING to do with equality and respect for alternative sexualities, concenn for the planet, or realistic civil response in a disaster.
Bush is a buffoon, but what are the Democratic leaders? How much further will this story go if these activities by Democrat officials remain unexamined and unprosecuted?