Four days after the storm, Bush, while defending the failing relief efforts, made this absurd statement:
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
At the time there were howls of disbelief. People pointed to the hurricane Pam exercise, the fact that almost everyone knew there were concerns about the levees, and the fact that the President had to have been advised of these issues.
It turns out that he was, and Bush was just lying.
Video showing President George W Bush being warned on the eve of Hurricane Katrina that the storm could breach New Orleans' flood defenses has emerged. The footage, obtained by the Associated Press, also shows Mr Bush being told of the risk to evacuees in the Superdome.
Katrina not only confirmed the disingenuous nature of this administration, but also points out just how disconnected and incompetent they are. The President had to be shown a DVD of news reports, 4 days after the storm hit, to understand the scale of the disaster.
It took four days, in a situation where hours, and even minutes, are critical, for Bush to get up to speed on this story.
This administration is clueless.
A major storm is coming ashore, they get all the briefings, all the warnings, ignore them, then lie about it.
They attacked Iraq, claiming that they only needed 100,000 troops (over the objections of the top General), they claimed it would cost only 20-30 billion for the war, they claimed reconstruction would cost a total of 1.7 billion dollars.
A major business deal may present security concerns. There is a process in place to make sure the deal is acceptable. The process isn't followed, the administration claims it was, and insist the deal is fine, even as more disturbing information keeps coming out.
And the Republicans in Congress keep allowing it to happen.
Lying, inept, and corrupt, the current state of to many of the Republicans now in DC.
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13 comments:
OK, we've determined that the administration lied. As it has so many times before. Where is the outrage? Where is the anger from the American people? Nothing seems to move the public into doing anything or even objecting to this consistent dishonesty from the Bush Administration. Have we come to the place where America, by its own inaction, deserves the goverment it gets?
Um, y'all DO know the difference between the levees BREACHING and OVERTOPPING, don't you... Then again the press obviously doesn't either based on their reports of the videotape.
The Levees did both according to one the Corp of Engineers.
The Army Corps of Engineers has said that Katrina was just too massive for a system that was not intended to protect the city from a storm greater than a Category 3 hurricane, and that the floodwall failures near Lake Pontchartrain were caused by extraordinary surges that overtopped the walls.
One led to the other, and Bush lied about it less that a week later.
Bush lied and thousands died, has taken on new meaning.
Now maybe we can add thousands died then bush lied.
If the levees overtopping quote is from John Hall, his initial comments on overtopping were incorrect. Soil movement under the levees caused the failure, not overtopping. Summary from Wiki:
An analysis at the two canal locations has virtually ruled out overtopping as the cause of the failures, the engineers said. Overtopping occurs when rising waters spill over the top of a floodwall. The analysis shows that the water levels in both the London Avenue and 17th Street canals missed the top of the floodwalls by at least two feet, Nicholson said."
Additional info:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3387278.html
For those who didn't bother watching the video, Bush is warned about overtopping, not about the levees failing structurally.
Meanwhile, the levees are ignored by local government (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9342186/) under investigation for corruption before Katrina hit.
The video doesn't prove Bush was warned that the levees would fail entirely. His "didn't know" statement is pretty dumb, but hardly OMGCONSPIRACY! The story here is at the local, not federal level, but attention goes to the molehill while the mountain is ignored because not partisanl convenient.
I guess in the rush to generate fanatic-stirring headlines, all that matters is the first glance. Your target audience will get worked up in an anti-Bush froth by taking the claim at face value, and mission accomplished. How about the next headline read, "Bush studied Nazism in school" because he learned about Hitler in 7th grade history?
Gosh, I wonder why the right-wing blogs laugh at left-wing blogs, while left-wing blogs relentlessly villify.
OK, we've determined that the administration lied. As it has so many times before. Where is the outrage? Where is the anger from the American people? Nothing seems to move the public into doing anything or even objecting to this consistent dishonesty from the Bush Administration. Have we come to the place where America, by its own inaction, deserves the goverment it gets?
a) As I just posted, the OP proved nothing.
b) Nice drama. Anger. Outrage. Oh my! Maybe the public is numb to real problems because of overexposure to non-issues like this. Those (on both left & right) like you who cry wolf every day have no one to blame but yourselves.
Now cry about the truth of my post, or deal with the facts.
So, your defense of Bush's lie is to try to determine what the meaning if is, is
You sound just like Clinton
LOL
Lets face it, while New Orleans was flooding he was in Arizona haveing some Cake with John McCain, and then in San Deigo, in a gittar photo session.
HE was without a clue, and this isn't about any CONSPARICY, but about verasity.
He lies to get out of trouble, he lies to cover himself etc
I have to agree, you appear to be using Clinton's define 'IS' argument.
The president was advised BEFORE the storm that massive flooding due to a levee failure (falling down, or overtopping are both failures) was a probability. After the storm hits, and he is confronted he tries to leave the impression that it was stunning that it happened.
He is either lying, or grossly incompentent.
You could argue he is both.
His mamagement style is to appoint buddies, or buddies of buddies, give them stupid nicknames, and then cheer them on.
No oversight, no hard questions (heck in this video, no questions at all), andno concern about their preformance.
No it is clear how he bankrupted the oil companies he was in charge of.
Heck, for 4 days after the event Bush was unaware of the extend of the storm. He had to be given a DVD of news coverage so he could understand what happened.
Detatched, lying and incapable
"He is either lying, or grossly incompentent."
Hmm, the same could be said about people who refuse to understand the difference between an "overtopping" scenario and a "breeching" scenario, which are VERY different in terms of disaster impact.
Heck even the AP had to issue a correction because they realized that the two terms are not synomynous
Hmm, the same could be said about people who refuse to understand the difference between an "overtopping" scenario and a "breeching" scenario, which are VERY different in terms of disaster impact.
There is a difference, but it is clear that Bush himself did not understand this.
In either case, they repreented a major disaster, and overtoping as well as failures did occure. In addition the NWS did warn that failure of the system was a concern, as did the Pam exersize.
Face it, he lied. Just like the Niger nuclear issue, just like the metal tubes, and much of the other Iraq informaion
You sound just like Clinton.
Defining 'Is'
This is from part of a congressional investigation
Among the reasons for failure:
• Katrina's storm surge overtopped some sections. The cascade eroded soils from the base of the landward side of some levee sections, causing them to fail.
• In sections where the surge didn't overtop levee segments, water percolated under the sheet pilings through layers of peat, sand, and clay and bubbled up on the other side. Ivor van Heerden, a marine scientist at Louisiana State University, noted that these failures tended to occur where the pilings were driven only 10 or 11 feet into the ground. Where pilings were driven 25 feet, the levees kept the water at bay. Indeed, he expressed concern that this percolation may have weakened other sections of the levee system that appear to have survived Katrina.
It appears that overtopping did occure, and caused the failure.
The rest is very simply spin, to confuse those who do not pay close attition, and offer political cover to the President and his administration
It's obvious that it's impossible to have a rational debate with those infected with BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). Since y'all refuse to understand the HUGE difference between the disaster scenarios of overtopping vs. breeching (which is why the AP had to issue a correction),and then projecting your own ignorance on the subject on to Bush, there's no reason to continue this discussion any longer.
Bush Derangement Syndrome, cute, Maybe the Bush is Deranged Syndrom
The more interesting ailment appers to be the 'Bush is God' effect. Those so touched defend his actions through convoluted legalist argunments that try to obscure a truth they are unable to accept.
From Max Mayfield, Director National Hurricain Center, deleivered to Fed Govt Officials PRIOR to the storm's hitting.
He warned of:
a nightmare scenario of New Orleans’ levees not holding, winds smashing windows in high-rise buildings and flooding wiping out large swaths of the Gulf Coast.
Again, it is clear levee concerns were very hign on the list of concers of Fed Govt Officials, and Bush's
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
Is clearly a lie.
Unless we are debating IS again. This thin little bit about 'Even AP', while cute is flawed. Since any AP source can put up anything on AP.
Classic liberal blogger technique, John, moving the goalposts after your initial "gotcha" revelation turns out to be false. The "smoking gun" video turns out NOT to show evidence that Bush was lying.
I'll give you this, however. If you DO want to make a case analogous to Clinton's PROVEN lying, it would be his "sexual relations" comment about "that woman, Ms. Lewenski". At least in that Clinton lie, he could claim that, to him, sexual relations intimated, uh, penetration of a different orifice. Again, however, there is a much more clear disaster scenario of levee breeches (very catastrophic) compared to levee overtopping (catastrophic, but quickly recoverable), than a b*** job and a f***.
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