If It Looks Like A Gun, And There’s Smoke Coming Out Of The Barrel…
by sarabeth at 6:00 am on March 2nd, 2006 in Bush Man Date, KatrinaOn Thursday, September 1, 2005, three days after Katrina made landfall, President George W. Bush went on ABC’s Good Morning America and said to Diane Sawyer “I don’t think anyone anticipated breach of the levees.”
On Tuesday, September 13, 2005, having carefully thought it over for 15 days, President George W. Bush stepped forward and took responsibility for government failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina: “To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility”.
On Wednesday, March 1, 2006, the Associated Press revealed it was in possession of confidential footage of a video-conference held on Sunday, August 28, 2005 in which
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 (emphasis added)
History doesn’t record whether on September 13, 2005, Bush wrestled (briefly or otherwise) with the question of whether he should admit that it had been forcefully brought to his personal attention before Katrina struck that breach of the levees was not just possible but very probable.
History only records that when he went before the American public to acknowledge that mistakes had been made in the federal response to Katrina, and to accept responsibility for those mistakes, he chose not to admit that he himself was aware, well before Katrina made landfall, that breach of the levees was quite likely. That his statement of September 1, 2005 did not uniquely comport with the truth.
Presumably, he (or his thinkers and handlers and strategists) thought that even if administration critics and lunatic, hysterical bloggers shrilly declaimed otherwise, no actual proof would ever emerge that breach of the levees had not only been anticipated by the administration officials responsible for disaster management, but had been brought to his personal attention.
But now it has. And history does not record whether President Bush reacted to the news with a Nixonian flurry of four letter words. (Or, at least, it is not yet known what history may have recorded.)
President Bush has spoken out in recent days about how Iraqis face a fundamental choice, between freedom and democracy on the one hand, and civil war and chaos on the other hand.
Now it appears that Americans – whether they be ordinary citizens or the elected representatives privileged to vote yea or nay in impeachment proceedings, when said proceedings are directed against the President of the United States – are faced with a fundamental choice of their own. Did President Bush lie to the American people about his role in the administration’s criminally ineffectual response to Katrina, even as he pretended to accept responsibility? Or was he simply too busy with important affairs of state to remember relatively unimportant details of what he was told about Katrina and when?
Or is it possible that America will decide that it simply doesn’t care? That this story will go where all such stories have gone before, to the “just a misunderstanding, ha ha!” graveyard.
We may have elected this guy. Does that mean we have to just grin and bear it, ad infinitum?
It is up to each of us, isn’t it? So where do you want to go today? To stick your head in a hole in the sand? Or to stand up and say “Enough is bloody enough!”
Make your voice heard. Those elected representatives who are privileged to vote yea or nay in impeachment proceedings are responsible to each of us. We control their strings. Let’s pull them, already. Remember, history will judge not only them, but through them it will also judge us.
And don’t forget those wide-eyed grandchildren, who will look trustingly up at you and ask: “When they proved how that Bush lied to the country, tell us what you did, Grandma?”
Victoria wrote:
I’m with you, Sarabeth. I can tolerate a lot of human frailty, poor decision making, bad policies and fundamental philosophical disagreements… but flat-out, proof-in-the-pudding lying is more than I can bear.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 7:51 am ¶
JimC wrote:
I bet you thought I had died, been called up for Iraq duty, or something, nope just waiting to see if I didn’t make any comments myself, what effect it would have on comment frequency. Seems to have dropped off in the time I was gone ;-)
I was going to keep my silence for much longer but this is getting stupid…
If anyone wants the truth about this suppsoed new revelation in the Katrina story, please go here
Not only whas this old news but it clearly shows what a bias the media has when reporting this crap…
Let the “I hate JimC” comments begin…again…back into the silence…
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 12:16 pm ¶
sac wrote:
I blame FEMA and Michael Brown for the Katrina fuck-up, as they were the ones charged with responding to the crisis. Clearly Brown was asleep at the wheel. Of course, it was the Bush administration who hired the joker and I agree this is yet another example of White House incompetence, but as for the video in question, it doesn’t appear that Bush himself was told specifically that the levees would break, mighty Zep style, but rather it was brought up as one of many concerns.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 12:28 pm ¶
matt wrote:
JimC said: February 10th, 2006 at 8:14 am:
Seriously. Go back into your hole.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 12:44 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Yes, Matt attack me but ignore the facts…that’s fine…did you look at the link? Probably not, spent your time trying to attack me…if you had read the link I posted it clearly demonstrates that breachment of the levees was not conveyed, in fact it was overtopping or water coming over the top of the levee…but let’s impeach Bush anyway, thanks sarabeth for finally revealing the true goal.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 2:22 pm ¶
matt wrote:
Captain Ed isn’t exactly the voice of authority. Are we really going to get into “breached” vs “topped”? that’s pathetic. What is the definition of “is” anyway?
Come on:
Choose whatever words you want. The president was playing guitars with poncey country music stars while new orleans flooded. Oh, but it all would have been different if they had said “breached” rather than “overtopped.” I’m sure he would have reacted MUCH differently then.
That’s your shriveled up credibility over there in the corner.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 2:36 pm ¶
Victoria wrote:
Jim -
I DID go read the link (and I read Captains Quarters with some frequency)… but the key issue here isn’t whether the levees were broken (”breached”) or whether they were not high enough (”overtopped”). That’s a question that should have been addressed long before (are they strong enough? are they tall enough?).
The key issue is whether there was a flaw with the levees (broken, or not high enough) that would put people in danger. There was. They knew about it. There’s the lie.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 4:02 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
I’m going to break my own rule to respond to JimC, since he’s raised a substantive point.
Yes, if you read the transcript of the August 28 briefing, it does indeed turn out that “breach of the levees” is not mentioned at all. And many people have realized that between yesterday and today. But many of them don’t seem to feel that changes things materially.
Speaking only for myself, let me explain why.
After the NYT put out the detailed timeline which showed that multiple reports had reached the White House of breached levees on the night of the 29th and the morning of the 30th, yet they professed not to know about breached levees till the 31st, the White House machine certainly responded with spin which made a firm distinction between “breach of the levees” and “overtopping of the levees”.
So now the faithful are going: “See, Bush wasn’t warned about levees being breached, only about levees being overtopped.”
Indeed. And how many people in America believe that was a meaningful distinction on the night of August 28th? How many people believe that the administration response in terms of preparedness should have been any different, just because the “we may have a huge problem” warnings spoke of levees being overtopped and not breached?
To me, the news that has JimC jumping up and down in vindicated outrage and outright triumph matters very little really. It just changes slightly the nature of the lie that Bush and his administration are guilty of having orchestrated. Maybe it’s not quite the smoking gun it seemed like yesterday, when Bush appeared to be caught in a direct lie, in so many words. If it gives Bush apologists inner peace to be able to say “See it wasn’t a direct lie, just an indirect lie”, who am I to begrudge them that satisfaction?
The fact remains that Bush and his administration have consistently said that Katrina caught them unprepared. It’s the same post 9/11 “Who could have expected this?” sham. And the videotape and transcripts prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that they have no right to make that claim. I tis not the truth. It is a lie. Heck, Bush himself has said on the videotape that they are fully prepared.
And why even bother to bring up the whole issue of how the administration has, without batting an eyelid, suddenly LEAKED tapes and transcripts that they refused to turn over to congressional committees on grounds of executive privilege? Is that another big lie, or what? If they are needed for Congressional oversight, they can’t be released officially. If they help the President to recover from a political scandal, it’s okay to LEAK them? And this is the administration that wants to prosecute whistleblowers for leaks? Give me a break, JimC!
And, yes, please go back into your hole.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 5:19 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Matt, as I have mentioned before, I actually have some experience with levees. There is a huge difference between “overtopping” and breaching. Overtopping is a controlled spilling of water over the top whereas a breach is a catastrophic failure of the structural integrity of the levee itself, BIG DIFFERENCE!!!
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 6:14 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
sarabeth, so are you retracting the call for impeachment then? Just wondering if we can talk about impeaching Bush now or not, since you posted about it. Also, impeaching Bush for a perceived lie is ok with me, it will distract the country and bring attention to the pettiness of the Democrats…
IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!!
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 6:17 pm ¶
marc wrote:
Curious how the Republicans think that logic only applies to levees and not interns.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 8:48 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Now that was funny!
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 8:56 pm ¶
screwtape wrote:
SUCKER.
Posted 03 Mar 2006 at 5:11 am ¶
sarabeth wrote:
I know. I hang my head in shame.
Posted 03 Mar 2006 at 6:03 am ¶