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Audacity of Truth
Flyswatter in Chief:
"He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him during the interview...he swatted his hand and he said ‘I got the sucker’...it was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment."- The NYT's John Harwood, describing Obama's killing of a fly - 6/16/09
The Katrina kerfuffle, part deux
Note: *scroll down for updates*
————-
The blogosphere is abuzz this morning regarding the story about a ’secure’ (hah!) goverment tape as well as seven days of transcripts obtained by the AP show disaster officials warning the President and Homeland Security head honcho Michael Chertoff about the very serious threat Hurricane Katrina posed to New Orleans.
The best two blogosphere posts up that I’ve seen in response to this ‘breaking news’ come from John at Powerline, who points out the many factual errors contained within this story, and Kevin Aylward at Wizbang, who has an extensive write-up and at the end concludes that the leaker of the tapes and transcripts is none other than disgraced former FEMA director Michael Brown. Also check out Patterico’s post on this, where he points out the glaring factual errors in the LATimes reporting of this story.
The bottom line on all this seems to be 1) that this isn’t new news – except for those who want it to be and 2) the media continues to get the facts wrong as it relates to the timeline on who said what – and when they said it.
Read more via Big Lizards and Captain Ed
9:56 PM Update: Brent Baker at Newsbusters notes conflicting accounts between MSNBC and NBC of what was said on the video:
MSNBC versus NBC News. MSNBC’s David Shuster, at the top of Thursday’s Hardball, and NBC’s Lisa Myers at the start of the NBC Nightly News, played the identical soundbites from Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center warning, on Sunday August 28, about his “grave concern” the levees in New Orleans could be “topped” and a clip of President Bush four days later maintaining that “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” But they used the soundbites to prove opposite assessments. Shuster contended that Mayfield’s video “seems to contradict what President Bush said about Katrina” since Mayfield’s warning “clearly” means that “the President’s team did anticipate the breach.”
Lisa Myers, however, recognized the meaning of words and how water flowing over a levee, topping it, is not the same thing as a breaching, the collapse of a levee, which is what occurred. Myers explained: “Today Mayfield told NBC News that he warned only that the levees might be topped, not breached, and that on the many conference calls he monitored, ‘nobody talked about the possibility of a levee breach or failure until after it happened.’”
*Sigh.*
Read the whole thing.
10:22 PM Update: The AP reports on what La. Gov. Blanco said in briefing video about the levees:
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the hectic, confused hours after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast, Louisiana’s governor hesitantly but mistakenly assured the Bush administration that New Orleans’ protective levees were intact, according to new video obtained by The Associated Press showing briefings that day with federal officials.
“We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees,” Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29, according to the video. “We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time.”
Don’t look for the media to hype that interesting tidbit too much. (Hat tip: sanity in the comments section)
Related Toldjah So posts:
- Governor Blanco named one of the nation’s worst Governors
- How much blame goes to Blanco?
- Hurricane Governors ratings soar – except for Blanco
- I love General Honore!
- Nagin reverses course, suspends N.O. reopening
- Impeach Blanco blog
- Taking responsibility equates to taking “full responsibility”
- Blanco Incompetence Caught On Camera
- Katrina response: an honest analysis
- Levee breaches
- Blanco Passes Buck Back to Nagin
- Money Flowed to Questionable Projects
- Media groups say “show us the bodies”
- Katrina: Urban legends, Nagin’s eye openers, etc
- Disastrous disaster response from local and state La. officials
- About those levees
- Media pushes “white guilt” angle
- Bush personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation
- Corps officials: Funding levels not to blame for flooding
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64 Responses to “The Katrina kerfuffle, part deux”
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Bak- Darn you and your silly facts!
Good grief how quickly people think that NO had been spared by the storm once it passed!
Geez,andrew, you can’t even grok the difference between overtopped and breached, I don’t think I have either the skill or the patience to explain to you the difference between erosion and collapse in architectural terms.
So, show me where the levees broke before or during the storm…the storm was over long before the water started pouring into the city, unless you know something no one else seems to, which seems very unlikely.
“Geez,andrew, you can’t even grok the difference between overtopped and breached, I don’t think I have either the skill or the patience to explain to you the difference between erosion and collapse in architectural terms.”
Oh I know the difference. But to me one is quite related to the other, specially in the chance of the latter happening given the former.
“So, show me where the levees broke before or during the storm”
The industrial canal failed during the storm: “Earlier, during the storm, a breach occurred along the Industrial Canal in the eastern part of the city, sending a cascade of water into the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood, where many of the rooftop rescues were taking place”
Andrew, excellent!
You found and posted a fact rather than an opinion. (I am not being facetious either.)
This canal breached, but I see no indication (nor have I) that it was known or reported that the larger and more serious breaches were known about, or had occurred, until after the worst of the storm had passed, and after many people had said they had survivied. The morning after the storm the news media were saying how NO had dodged the bullet, and even the NO and LA people had reported to FEMA that there was only minor flooding and that they had it under control. The major levee breaks, and the subsequent failure of most of the lift station pumps, occured later, and drastically worsened the situation.
“This canal breached, but I see no indication (nor have I) that it was known or reported that the larger and more serious breaches were known about, or had occurred, until after the worst of the storm had passed, and after many people had said they had survivied.”
That’s very nice. But the fact remains that its wrong to say the levees broker later. Its also wrong to say that no one expected them to be be breached.
It’s not wrong to say that no one expected them to be breached. The point of this whole agrument has been that Bush had been told they might be breached. Going back to the original point you were making, you kept stating that Bush should have known they were going to be breached, when he was only briefed that they might be overtopped. The people on the ground in NO, who should know what the levees are like, should have expected this and let it be known up the chain, which they apparently totally failed to do. Early reports indicated that the main levees had not been breached or even overtopped, but as you pointed out there was a problem with one canal/levee.
“Going back to the original point you were making, you kept stating that Bush should have known they were going to be breached, when he was only briefed that they might be overtopped”
And I said that to me being topped leads to the possibility of a breach.
What was the president suppose to do anyways that he hadn’t already done?
He already declared a state of emergency even before the storm struck so necessary equipemnt and supplies could begin to get ready.
Was he suppose to warn the NO that thier might be a breach, when he most likely got the information for NO in the first place?
He did recommend, probably plead with Blanco to get moving and start evacuations.
Even after the breach, and seeing the devestation, she stalled on the president wanting an additional 24 hours to think about it.
It was a nice little hit piece as I have read from others.
Federal response is suppose to be the LAST response. It begins at the City levels – Nagin (which failed miserably), then the State level – Blanco (which failed even more miserably), then Federal level – FEMA (which also failed).
City and state did not follow thier own evac plans, and FEMA had nothing to work with (they are suppose ot work hand and hand with the existing city and state plans – which at this point there was nothing).
I will agree this was a major cluster fark for all concerned, BUT I also see this as a biased hit piece that seems to only involve the president. Where is the expose on city and state levels where it was the MOST IMPORTANT?
And I’m saying that that does not necessarily follow, you seem to think it does, I don’t. However, once again, to get back to the original point, it matters not whether or not some expert or another, or you or I, think one leads to the other. The president was not told breach, he was told overtopping, and that is that. He was left with the impression that it was possible they could be overtopped, and not informed that this would mean a catastrophic breach. Regardless of all of this, the basic fact boils down to you want to blame Bush for not knowing something he was not told, and you’re trying to find an excuse to do so.
No matter what you say, there is no way you should blame Bush for this. Now blame NO officials, that I can get onboard with.
You leftists like to go on about how stupid Bush is, then expect him to be an expert on dams/levees and clairvoyant to boot. The fact is, no matter what he does, you want to blame him for failures he had little to no control over. It gets old, irritating, and makes you and other leftists look increasingly irrelevant.
” The president was not told breach, he was told overtopping, and that is that.”
So he’s simply wrong, not lying.
“No matter what you say, there is no way you should blame Bush for this. Now blame NO officials, that I can get onboard with.”
Of course!
andrew says, “And I said that to me being topped leads to the possibility of a breach. “
This is incorrect.
Just because there is over topping does not mean there is a possibility of a breach.
Over topping doesn’t have anything to do with structural integrity of that which is holding back the water.
Over topping happens all the time with ocean waters and break walls, yet it doesn’t mean the walls will fail.
If the walls themselves are structurally unsound, or the ground in which they are built are unstable, THEN you have the possibility of breach.
There is a difference.
“Over topping happens all the time with ocean waters and break walls, yet it doesn’t mean the walls will fail.”
I know. It means there’s a chance.
It means no such thing.
Over topping does not mean there is a chance of breach.
again….
If the walls themselves are structurally unsound, or the ground in which they are built are unstable, THEN you have the possibility of breach.
There is a difference.
Just because water splashes over does not mean the walls will break.
“Just because water splashes over does not mean the walls will break.”
I know. Just because water is constantly flowing over a levee made of earth does not mean that the earth will erode away. But it does mean there is a chance.
If it was made of mud I would agree.
Katrina, was America’s second major terrorist attack.
Steve, please post a pic of yourself…..I need to confirm to myself that both of your eyes are not on the same side of your nose..!
Pam wrote, “Darn you and your silly facts! Good grief how quickly people think that NO had been spared by the storm once it passed!
Yes. Talk Radio in my town even buzzed on about how New Orleans had been spared the morning after the storm. And that is what Bush was referring to.
Again, the only people looking foolish are the legacy media and the Andrews of the world. The fact is that the disaster relief and rescue effort that was amassed was VERY LARGE.
There is an interesting report at the American Society of Civil Engineers website:
External Review Panel Progress: Report Number 1
It appears that the disaster in New Orleans was decades in the making.
Another MSM lie unmasked.
Why do you all still respond to andrew? He’s simply baiting you. Relax, Guys, and give it a rest.
There’ll always be steve.
Those people at the Superdome sure looked terrorized to most Americans. If you had been there you might have felt terror as well. What word would the Republican’s like us to use for the “fear of injury or death? Peace
As to the fools wading around waist deep and bitchin’ about NO one rescuing them. All they have to do is resume their pre-storm position and bend over. They will see a reflection of the single largest reason they are in their latest predicament. Presumably, they have eyes somewhere on the front of their head.
As I recall, there were no Asians killed. Is this because of racial profiling or that they know what typhoon/hurricane inbound WARNING means and took advantage of the three day advance warning?
Can I get an Amen, steve!
If me and mine were there for whatever reason that might be, we get organized. We have taken care of ourselves by ourselves, all our lives. We take care of each other through the result of actions and not “FEELINGS”! We don’t stand around screaming “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”
Actions or the lack of them, are the key elements in any situation. If you want the republicans to provide you a word for your hand wringing analysis “fear of injury or death”, try “cubbie” your word for Jim M trying to explain history to you yesterday. 
Hmm..it’s my simple opinion that everyone dropped the ball relatinve to Katrina…except those who had sense enough (and the ability) to cover their own asses.
All the engineers and scientists have been saying for decades that if N.O. was hit by a cat 4 or 5 hurricane they were screwed! No surprises.
The blame should go to 2 places, those that could help themselves and didn’t, and those who could help others in need and didn’t. There is no excuse for govn’t officials from the mayor to the president. They knew it was coming (we all did) days in advance and relatively speaking, watched in awe. Great! “…biggest recovery effort in history within 3 days after the storm landed…” Whooptee doo…How about 3 days before the storm hit? That’s what’s so dissapointing.
And the people who live in storm alley…what idiots! (not all included in that statement. I know there were many who really didn’t have the means to fend for themselves.) But for those that did…Being a poor country bumpkin from Idaho, I guess I was lucky that my parents taught me to BE PREPARED! H20, food, first aid kits, flashlights, etc.
What the hell were they thinking? For Cris’sakes, they live BELOW SEA LEVEL in hurricane central. Well I guess at the end of the day, seeing this despitude, I shouldn’t be surpised when I see so many bitching that they can’t stay in govn’t sponsored hotels anymore…so much for taking a little innetitive (damn the fact that there is no spell check!)and do something on your own.
I think the most genious thing about the whole situation is that the politions realize that they F’ed up major here and rather than being held accountable for the fiasco, they’ve got you folks arguing about who is MOST to blame amoungst each other rather than demanding all their heads for gross incompitance…
That’s what I think.
Can I just apologise now for all the past and future spelling errors and typos? I suck….just call me the spellcheck junkie!
-Heh… I distinctly recall Blanco on camera a few days after the storm. The day she “stalled” the Pres. in knowing what to tell him about the general situation (she didn’t have a clue), or asking for federal help (she kept insisting they had it under control and it was a state leadership thing anyway).
- The reporter asked her what she was doing to get the required emergency aid to the stranded prople still in the city and she said quote:
…”Well the governor will…Oh…. that would be me…..ummmmmm”
- Right on top of things *chuckle*
- BTW…I have no doubt that if Bush would have declared Marshall law and a state of emergency and asked for special Congressional powers to go in and take over, the moonbats and MSM would have been screaming within 24 hours that he was acting like a king again, and overstepping his Constitutional powers. See how it works folks. Sort of a permenent state of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
- Bang
Link
Where is the media screaming about this?
Why is this not being bantered about? Talked about over and over again?
Nope, because Blanco is a Democrat and Bush is a Republican and President, and it is open season on the President.
As Big Lizards
A little more from Big Lizards:
Here is a few other interesting things that never get replayed:
Link
Then there was the busses:
And what happens when the meia becomes part of the problem?
Link
Ah and the Captain has done an excellent job debunking most those myths the Media perpertrated on the public:
Talk to the Captain
I do agree the media was quick to hype and over-exaggerate thier stories causing the catastrophe to be worse because of thier reporting out-right lies and inaccuracies.
It allowed more hatred to ferment, allowed the the efforts of men, women and children of all races and religous denomination to boil down to race.
But what do you do when you get the money from the Federal Government, why you remodel:
This is a VERY good take on what happened with Katrina, I suggest reading it:
Read the rest here
Another one to look through HERE
Just to bring things back in focus again.
And for others to realize this was not just the President involved in this, there was alot of others, though the media seems to be collectively forgetting this fact.
It’s on Yahoo News also
CB wrote, “everyone dropped the ball relatinve to Katrina
I’d say the people who didn’t evacuate dropped the ball. Yes. And the people who didn’t use resources such as the hundreds of local buses sitting idle. Yes. But who didn’t drop the ball? Look at the Popular Mechanics article I linked above and you see who didn’t drop the ball. Hundreds of organizations. The largest rescue and relief effort in history of a hurricane.
Oh yeah. Who else dropped the ball? The Louisiana Department of Health who repeatedly denied the American Red Cross from bringing supplies to Convention Center folks.
Let’s keep this bandwagon rolling huh CB? Isn’t it fun to point fingers. Let’s see. I blame the legacy media for misreporting and not identifying what FEMA’s role after a hurricane is (not first responders). It says it on FEMA’s website. Expect a 72 -96 hour response.
Anyways. Before people get me wrong here. Let me applaud the wonderful people who bled, sweated, tired themselves out helping the people in the Gulf States. This is what the media and CB should be doing. Applauding a tireless set of people who put out so much heart and soul into helping people. Thank you.
And Thank you Sanity for pointing out the double standard of the media. It’s why people do not listen to them anymore and they are bleating to thier dwindling flock of sheep. HA!
bush is the President. bush is in charge. If bush is not up to the job he should go sell shoes. Peace
Bak said: “Let me applaud the wonderful people who bled, sweated, tired themselves out helping the people in the Gulf States.”
Yup. You’re exactly right. There were tons of individuals that risked life and limb…just because it was the right thing to do. My point was more directed at the various govn’t agencies and more specifically, the leaders therein. This deal should have been more of a “group effort” with a helluva lot better timing.
Well well well!!! Hey Andrew, pay attention! Lookie what the AP just released:
“AP FRIDAY NIGHT CLARIFICATION ON BUSH/KATRINA VIDEO
Fri Mar 03 2006 19:48:29 ET
Clarification: Katrina-Video story
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.
The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.
The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn’t until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.”