2.13.2006

Far from the Madding Crowd

The White House is calling for a hair-splitting retraction from the NYT because they reported that Bush was "on vacation" while New Orleans was flooding on August 30 when, in fact, he was giving a Yoo Ess Ay speech with the USS Ronald Reagan and accompanying naval personnel in the background. As TAPPED's Greg Sargent points out, this was many hours after the White House had learned that New Orleans was flooding and, in some cases, on fire. It's worse: This was days after the WH had received urgent warnings and even a PowerPoint presentation on how the levees might breach and tens of thousands of people die. So where was the president?

San Diego. Plugging a breach in support for the war.

Heckuva job.

UPDATE: As the WaPo noted, according to the recently released 600-page report on the post-Katrina fiasco, "'earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response' because [the president] alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance." Too bad Bush was busy. (Article via PGR.) A CNN article is here.

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