Tape shows alert to Bush before Katrina

[davefoc]

By what benchmark do we gauge the performance of Brownie? What is our baseline? We see that supplies and personnel were staged. We see that warnings were sent out to the city. We see that the city is even warned that it may be uninhabitable for weeks. People call the response slow but damage assessment in light of a catastrophe of this size is slow in itself. I am unconvinced that Brownie did a bad job. I see no empirical evidence, mostly emotional appeals.

I am not an expert here, but I think that various stories have surfaced that suggest to me that Brown was not the guy for this job:

1. Personal emails suggesting that he was more focused on saving his dog than doing what would be the most important job of his life.

2. Failure to respond to emails of help from federal agencies, medical teams and bus companies.

3. Establishing what seems to be a crony relationship with a company founded by a Republican lobbyist to supply buses that in fact had no buses to supply.

4. Failure to do the right things to get national guard patrols in a position to be deployed immediately after the disaster. I realize the blame can be assigned in various places on this issue, but I think he was the guy that needed to convince the appropriate authorities of the right thing to do here and he failed at that.

5. Failure to have implemented communication technologies to insure that he and his staff could communicate regardless of the destruction of local infrastructure.


In defense of the guy it seems like he was caught in a political battle with Chertoff over FEMA resources and he was losing.

 

[hgc]

I just had an earth-shattering revelation! Bush said that it looked like New Orleans dodged a bullet because, like you know, hurricanes don't shoot bullets, they shoot birdshot!

 

[corplinx]

1. Personal emails suggesting that he was more focused on saving his dog than doing what would be the most important job of his life.

2. Failure to respond to emails of help from federal agencies, medical teams and bus companies.

Hence the problem with the evidence. How many emails did he respond to versus how many did he not? etc etc. Mind you, I doubt one man can handle a disaster of this proportion. Obviously there is going to be prioritization and somebody is going to get the short end of it.

There is no baseline to benchmark his performance. This video shows an effective person. He didnt appear to be slouching before the hurricane. His worst fault I've seen is that he cared about the partisan attack that started on him right away instead of staying focused on his job. He shouldnt have stopped to type "can i quit yet?".

 

[fishbob]

He shouldnt have stopped to type "can i quit yet?".

You think maybe this was the point where he figured out he was going to the be the one to take one for the team?

 

[a_unique_person]

It looks like he knew the problems started at the top, but there was no way he could say that. He was the meat in the sandwich.

 

[Cain]

Actually, looking as the transcript it wasnt explicitly said. In fact, they say they cant predict if the levees will get topped. However, I still believe Bush was dishonest in this case.

Maybe, maybe not. Suppose someone had explicitly warned the levees would break and Bush's dumb *ss couldnt' retain the information any longer than a goldfish could. Misoverestimating his intelligence leads to misunderestimating his ethical standards.

Also, HGC: if you were going to post about running to the dictionary, you should have at least copy/pasted the definition while there. Eat crap, you communist.

 

[hgc]

...
Also, HGC: if you were going to post about running to the dictionary, you should have at least copy/pasted the definition while there. Eat crap, you communist.

People with dictionaries form a special cadre. We don't the hoi polloi knowing what we know. They'll get into our food supply.

 

[Ed]

People with dictionaries form a special cadre. We don't the hoi polloi knowing what we know. They'll get into our food supply.

Comestibles, not food.

 

[davefoc]

Manny,
I checked out your link. What exactly is that?. Does somebody in the administration ask Bush some questions and they publish the interview on the whitehouse web site? The name of the questioner isn't listed.

As to whether the whitehouse spin on this seems more or less plausible based on this:

August 29, 2005
Katrina touches land and the New Orleans levees fail

September 1, 2005
Bush makes the "nobody could have anticipated..." comment on Good Morning America in an interview with Diane Sawyer.

September 10, 2005
Bush makes the clarification of what he meant in the interview that you linked to.


Hmm, so for 9 days Bush's comment is left out there to serve as fodder for various pundits, bloggers and internet pontificators who use it as a basis for ridiculing him.

During this time Bush defenders take their best shot at a Bush defense with the topping versus breach issue. The press secretary doesn't explain what the president meant and then nine days after all this has been going on Bush slips his clarification into the ersatz interview you linked to.

And somehow, all the media reports that I have seen haven't mentiooned the president's clarification, even media reports by Bush media friends.

I don't know. Bush's explanaiton might be true. But in the context of the questions that Sawyer was asking is it likely that is the meaning he intended? Sawyer was asking about whether he was satisfied with the government's response. His statement was a kind of excuse as to why the response wasn't better. It wouldn't be much of an excuse if the only thing it explained was the slow response for the time between when it appeared that the levess hadn't failed and when Bush knew they had failed.

So, my thought right now is that the most likely situation is that his comment was incredibly uninformed but honest and that it had the meaning it was generally believed to have had when he said it.

The lie, is Bush's clarification. Assuming I'm right, it's not all bad for the president though. Yes, his statement shows that he was incredibly uninformed on a critical issue but after he thought about it for awhile and had it explained to him he figured out what a stupid thing he'd said and came up with a fairly creative lie to mitigate the damage from the incredibly uniformed thing he had said. Of course, people can put an anti-Bush spin on this and assume that somebody else in the Bush administration thought up the lie, but I choose to take the high road here and give Bush the credit.

 

[Manny]

Manny,
I checked out your link. What exactly is that?. Does somebody in the administration ask Bush some questions and they publish the interview on the whitehouse web site? The name of the questioner isn't listed.

It's the press pool that follows him around. Dunno whether they were White House correspondents or local types; I'd guess the former since Bush seems pretty familiar with them in the video of the questioning. The White House website generally don't identify the questioner, probably for no better reason than they're "pool" questions and the identity of the specific questioner isn't important. But reporters, not White House people.

August 29, 2005
Katrina touches land and the New Orleans levees fail

September 1, 2005
Bush makes the "nobody could have anticipated..." comment on Good Morning America in an interview with Diane Sawyer.

Except that on the 30th, there were indeed reporters all over the French Quarter and Uptown saying that New Orleans had, as the President said, "dodged the bullet."

The press secretary doesn't explain what the president meant and then nine days after all this has been going on Bush slips his clarification into the ersatz interview you linked to.

Scott McClellan a) wasn't asked about it and b) is a certified idiot. Karl Rove, who is also an idiot but at least a proactive one, was laid low. Looking at the press briefing archives, it appears that was the first time someone (and again, a reporter, not a staffer -- it was not an "ersatz" interview) asked anyone from the administration, at least in a public forum. The press was too busy asking about delaying tax cuts (really!).

But in the context of the questions that Sawyer was asking is it likely that is the meaning he intended? Sawyer was asking about whether he was satisfied with the government's response. His statement was a kind of excuse as to why the response wasn't better. It wouldn't be much of an excuse if the only thing it explained was the slow response for the time between when it appeared that the levess hadn't failed and when Bush knew they had failed.

At the time it sure would have. At the time we're talking about several hours of complacency only a couple of days in. That's separate from the failings which occurred subsequent to then.

 

[DavidJames]

Looks like "Brownie" is much more honest in his self appraisal then his apologists.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/03/katrina.brown/index.html

I am gaining much more respect for him now that he doesn't owe his life to the Bush administration.

 

[zakur]

Except that on the 30th, there were indeed reporters all over the French Quarter and Uptown saying that New Orleans had, as the President said, "dodged the bullet."

All over? Maybe a handful, at most. Everybody else was saying otherwise.

 

[boooeee]

All over? Maybe a handful, at most. Everybody else was saying otherwise.

All the link says is that no newspapers used the words "dodged the bullet" in their headlines. In that respect, Bush indeed was incorrect.

But, I do think that the general mood on Monday morning was that New Orleans had dodged the bullet. Or rather, Katrina dodged New Orleans. If I recall correctly, forecasters were predicting the east arm (the most powerful part of the hurricane) to hit New Orleans dead on. Katrina then shifted course before landfall, with the eye headed towards New Orleans and Mississippi getting the worst of Katrina's winds. I guess my point is, as bad as it was in New Orleans, it could have been much worse. I think that was the mood Bush was referring to in his statements. Obviously, he made a mess of it by the way he worded things, as he almost always does when trying to speak off the cuff.

 

[davefoc]

Manny, Thanks for your response. I read through the comments and I thought you made reasonable points. Especially considering the context of the interview.

It does sound like Sawyer might be asking how come stuff is not happening right now so an answer by Bush that went to why the deployment of resources had been temporarily deployed might be what he was trying to convey.

But his answer isn't consistent with the idea that he was trying to explain a temporay deloy with the deployment of resources. What he did say was this:

I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will.

Note the section bolded above: He is saying that a serious storm was anticipated but not the levee breaking. This wouldn't make sense if he was trying to convey the idea that supplies were temporarily delayed because it wasn't realized right away that the levees had not held. It does make sense if he is trying to convey the idea that the government was well prepared for a disaster but this disaster was worse than anybody could have anticipated.

I suspect that the reason the media including the Bush defender contingent has not picked up on Bush's explanation is because they consider it implausible.

The best argument that Bush was really just trying to explain a temporary delay in deployment is that interpreting the comment in the way that it appears to be meant suggests that Bush was more uninformed on a critical issue than even a detractor like myself would have thought likely. Still my view of Bush has steadily declined for six years and I am at the point where I find it plausible that Bush might be far less bright than I thought that somebody who could get elected the US presidency would ever be and as such I find it at least plausible that Bush is uninformed enough about critical issues to have made such a stupid statement and meant it as he said it.

The relevant part of the interview as listed on an ABC web site
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1086311 :

Sawyer: "But given the fact that everyone anticipated a hurricane five, a possible hurricane five hitting shore, are you satisfied with the pace at which this is arriving? And which it was planned to arrive?"

Bush: "Well, I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday. I mean, I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. I can imagine -- I just can't imagine what it is like to be waving a sign saying 'come and get me now'. So there is frustration. But I want people to know there is a lot of help coming.


"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will."

 

[WildCat]

Video from The Associated Press if anyone hasn't seen it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content//video/2006/03/01/VI2006030101864.html

Max Mayfield did not say the levees could/would be breached, he said there was a concern that they wuld be topped. This is far, far different than saying they could be breached.

Breach: a : a broken, ruptured, or torn condition or area b : a gap (as in a wall) made by battering

Just where in this story is anyone claiming the levees could be breached? I'm not at all defending FEMA's response, but this whole thing claiming that Bush was warned about a breach isn't supported at all by the stories linked to in this thread.

 

[Manny]

The best argument that Bush was really just trying to explain a temporary delay in deployment is that interpreting the comment in the way that it appears to be meant suggests that Bush was more uninformed on a critical issue than even a detractor like myself would have thought likely.

Well, I'll agree that the remark is best viewed through the prism of his customary lack of erudition. . But combined with his explanation it makes sense to me, particularly since he had been told by the Governor that the best available information was that the levees had been topped but not breached.

 

[davefoc]

Max Mayfield did not say the levees could/would be breached, he said there was a concern that they wuld be topped. This is far, far different than saying they could be breached.

Breach: a : a broken, ruptured, or torn condition or area b : a gap (as in a wall) made by battering

Just where in this story is anyone claiming the levees could be breached? I'm not at all defending FEMA's response, but this whole thing claiming that Bush was warned about a breach isn't supported at all by the stories linked to in this thread.

Three responses:
1. It is really bad for levees to be topped and based only on uninformed opinion I believe that a common failure mechanism for a levee is for it to be topped which allows water to erode it away which allows more water to erode it more, ...

2. If a maximum storm surge had hit New Orleans even if the levees had held the flooding was predicted to be disastrous. One of the articles I read beffore Katrina hit talked about having to cut holes in the levees to begin the process of draining New Orleans. I.E. the disaster associated with a worst case hurrican without levee failure was as bad or worse as the actual disaster with the levee failure.

3. Bush's personal defense of his statement is not based on the issue of topping versus levee failure. It is, as has been noted, that he was only explaining why the delivery of resources was delayed. So if we take him at his word he wasn't claiming a difference between breach and topping as far as the consequences of a worst case hurricane event for New Orleans.

My view is that you are right. Bush's defense of his statement was a lie. In fact he was drawing a distinction between the effects of a topping event and a breach event. This was an uninformed comment in my view because a wide spread, well known consensus existed amongst people that had studied the consequences of worst case hurricane disasters in New Orleans that the town could be flooded just by the topping of the levees.

 

[RandFan]

There is simply no getting around the fact that we failed. 9/11 was supposed to be a wake up call. It wasn't. I'm not convinced that we will wake up. I would vote for a Democrat that I honestly believed would do the things Bush hasn't done to better prepare us and select people who are competent and not political appointees. Please blame Bush for this mess, he deserves it. BTW, read this weeks commentary to see another sickening example of good ol' boy politics Bush style.

Oh, and I'm sorry, I have no respect Brownie. The man was grossly incompetent.

I don't necassarily agree with much of Dave's analysis but in the end it really doesn't matter. This was a great big cluster f*** no matter what the reasons.

 

[davefoc]

I don't necassarily agree with much of Dave's analysis but in the end it really doesn't matter.

I am not sure I agree with much of Dave's analysis and in the end I am sure that you are right that it doesn't matter.

But for me, it was an interesting little side story on the Katrina disaster and a little side story on the overall story about the nature of Bush.

I tend to believe (because the notion pleases me) what is the greatest myth of all for skeptics, that truth matters and I was curious about what the truth of the situation was. I took my best shot at trying to figure that out, but in the end I will never know and that will not make one bit of difference in my life or anybody else's.

 

[Random]

There is simply no getting around the fact that we failed. 9/11 was supposed to be a wake up call. It wasn't. I'm not convinced that we will wake up. I would vote for a Democrat that I honestly believed would do the things Bush hasn't done to better prepare us and select people who are competent and not political appointees. Please blame Bush for this mess, he deserves it. BTW, read this weeks commentary to see another sickening example of good ol' boy politics Bush style.

Oh, and I'm sorry, I have no respect Brownie. The man was grossly incompetent.

I don't necassarily agree with much of Dave's analysis but in the end it really doesn't matter. This was a great big cluster f*** no matter what the reasons.

Welcome to the Revolution Randfan!