powerclown

In the video, there was mention by the weatherguy to Bush that the levees might be TOPPED, not BREACHED. He never mentioned to Bush that they might be breached. These are relevant technical terms when describing levee systems' behavior. "Topping" means some water spills in but the levee remains intact, "breaching" means a comprehensive failure of the levee. The distinction is critical.

Therefore, given Bush's use of the term "breach", I believe he acted in good faith and should not be held soley responsible for the Katrina effort.

guy44

Wow. I guess it depends what the definition of is - er, topped - is , huh?

I mean, come on. Do you really think that Bush hung up the phone after that meeting, glanced at Cheney and said, "Whew - for a second there, I was worried he was going to say breached. But no, he said topped, which is an utterly different term that implies a completely different event. Thank goodness I'm intimately familiar with the technical meanings of those two words in the context of levee systems, because otherwise, boy howdy, I'd be nervous."

Realistically, while you are very minutely, technically correct, there is no way to honestly construe what meteorologist's statement as "the water may possibly top some of the levees, but not outright break them."

There is just no way that such microscopic parsing was occuring:

A) in the presentation of a worst-case scenario to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the President,

B) in anyone's mind during the meeting, or

C) during Bush's statement regarding whether or not anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.

Basically, just because the exact word that the meteorologist used wasn't "breach," doesn't mean that Bush's statement was true. I just don't think your argument passes the sniff test.

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ratbastid

But notice the semantical effort involved to convince you otherwise. There IS no workable response to this on the Republican side apart from semantical wordsmithing.

powerclown

But there is an honest way to describe the LA Times reporting on this "new revelation" BushLied video: Dishonest, inaccurate and misleading.

shakran

heyyyyy, calm down grasshopper

Let 'em play their lawyerly word games. Let 'em try to redefine "anticipate" Let them do what they so love to remind us Clinton did.

Almost every time we bring a charge against bush the answer is "Well but Clinton. . . ."

Now that they're taking this horseshit tactic, I intend to throw that right back in their face the next time they do it.

So yeah. . . Let them dig their own grave. Suits me just fine.

docbungle

So...
The argument is that...Bush was informed of the potential damage of the hurricane ONE DAY before it hit...and then is called a liar when he states he had no idea it would be as bad as it was?

That's ridiculous. Nowhere in that video does anyone even come close to describing the actual damage that happened.

Yeah, they told him it would be bad. But no one had any idea it would be THAT bad. He thought he was prepared, but it turned out he wasn't. This video doesn't change that.

And even if it did (which it doesn't), just what can one expect to get accomplished in one day? Build a new Superdome?

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djtestudo

I think it's time to do something Bill Clinton obviously spent too much time lying to do: consult a dictionary.

v. topped, top·ping, tops
v. tr.

1. To form, furnish with, or serve as a top.
2. To reach the top of.
3. To go over the top of.
4. To exceed or surpass.
5. To be at the head of: She topped her class.
6. To remove the top or uppermost part from; crop: topped the fruit trees.

v. breached, breach·ing, breach·es
v. tr.

1. To make a hole or gap in; break through.
2. To break or violate (an agreement, for example).

So we are talking about water going over the leavees, while they stay in place, versus the water breaking through the leavees.

Sounds like a little bit of a difference to me, and likely WOULD make a difference when it comes to a disaster like that.

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shakran

Did we ever get that Shakran's Law made official? Sheesh, you could have at least given yourself a couple of hours before I nailed you like I said i would in my last post on this thread.


We are talking about Bush being warned that damage could be devastating. We are talking about Bush telling officials on the Gulf that we were ready for it and resources were mobilizing to take care of it. We are talking about that never happening. We are talking about Bush lying. End of story.

Dude, give it up. You CANNOT win this one. Bush lied. The videotape shows it. Playing bullshit word games will not change the fact that he lied- they will only make you look bad. Why don't you take up a fight you can win? You don't see me defending Kerry for being a big enough dipshit that he lost the campaign do you? That's because it would be a fight I could not win. Kerry WAS a dipshit. Just as Bush DID lie.

docbungle

No, it makes him mistaken. He never said "It won't be a problem." or "Everything will go as planned." or "We have it all worked out."

He said he was prepared and ready to help. That's it.

And the people in the video in NO WAY whatsoever stated firmly that there was an extreme danger of the levees failing. They used the word "potential."

This is nothing more than a witch hunt.

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scout

Who cares who lied. All politicians tell big stories and as someone stated earlier it's only lying if they are under oath.

It don't take a lot of common sense to figure out if a cat. 4 storm is heading my way and the levy down the street is only rated at cat. 3 then I better pack my shit and get the hell outa dodge. I don't necessarily need the President to stop by and let me know the dangers of the levy being breached. If I have no means of moving myself then it's time to start walking. If I'm unable to walk then you can bet your sweet ass the phone will be ringing at city hall, not at the President's desk. It's not FEMAs responsibility to move me out of my house beforehand, thats the job of the LOCAL government and police. It's FEMAs responsibility after the disaster to provide local relief, not beforehand.

What we have here is a failure to communicate and properly prepare starting at the local level. There is no way possible for any federal response to take care of people that haven't enough common sense to take proper care of themselves.

Make no mistake, there was failures at the federal level but none that compares to the failures at the local level.

timalkin

Bush came out a few weeks ago and took responsibility for the hurricane relief effort's slow response, even though it wasn't entirely his fault. What else do you want him to do?

The local and state government is more to blame for the disaster than anybody else. Mayor Ray Nagin was the one who had a few hundred school buses under his control to evacuate the leftover residents. The buses flooded as soon as the levies broke. Obviously Nagin didn't think the levees would break, or he would have evacuated these people. Right? How about calls to kick his sorry ass out of office?

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tecoyah

My synopsis of this fiasco:

FEMA has been somewhat castrated by its incorporation into DHS.

Brown did not have the experience to work the system in washington, let alone to handle a true emergency.

Chertoff did not prioritize FEMA as the primary responder to this disaster (here is the biggest mistake), and did not take warnings seriously.

Bush placed people in positions based on criteria which had nothing to do with qualifications, or experience.

The combination of these things, and the failures on a local level led to undo death and suffering for the American People.

there is plenty of blame to go around but, when all is said and done the release of recent information makes it clear to me where the buck stops, and I honestly think Bush needs to accept responsibility for making extremely poor descisions which allowed this failure to happen. Unfortunately....he will not, and the current power structure in this country is incapable of forcing the issue.

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Poppinjay

You're leaving out the crucial part of this. There is video tape of him being told that the event could be catastrophic and that the levees could be breached. Then, days afterward he said, "Nobody anticipated that the levees would be breached."

Honestly, I don't think he purposefully lied. He looked disinterested throughout the video, asked no questions, and probably forgot everything he was told.

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Rekna

This thread is not about who is to blame for Katrina but instead on the fact that Bush misslead the American public in order to make himself look better.

Now scout are you honestly saying it is ok to lie as long as you aren't under oath? What kind of a message does that logic send to a childern? I'm sorry but I don't believe being under oath has a single thing to do with lieing being wrong or not.

trickyy

interesting that you should mention such a thing
adding insult to injury is that fact that we were supposed to learn something about coordinating responses to national disasters after 9/11
now that we again look back at the mistakes (systemic and otherwise), is anything going to change for the better? what happens next time? i don't want to change the subject here, but i'm worried that we are once again passing laws, adding positions, and changing org charts, but essentially aren't making any useful improvements.

back on bush, i thought he did accept responsibility a few days after the hurricane. i'm not excusing his statements in the original post...and regardless of what he said, i really hope we don't have another catastrophe for a long time. i don't know if we can handle it.

smooth

if, or when, we do have another disaster, this incident has been machined so that people don't expect much from the feds. Now, I am not going to go so far as to say that bush deliberately refused to respond, hid the fact that he refused to respond by claiming that no one knew he should have, in order to demonstrate what his political party already thinks about the federal government in general. but it certainly, conveniently, meshes with his supporters' a priori belief that the federal government is bloated, unresponsive, and incapable of responding to these types of things, on the basis that it did not. so whether it's intentional or not, it certainly feeds into his political platform to reduce the feds on some things while increasing their police powers, which is the most troublesome aspect to me.

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scout

No I am not taking the position that it is ok to lie. I am taking the position that it really doesn't matter at this particular point and time. I am also taking the postion that it's over, done deal. What more could he have done even if he had foreseen the levies being breached? It's still very much the responsibility of the local government to evacuate the handicapped people in danger. It's even moreso the responsibility of the able body persons to get off their lazy asses and move out of harms way BEFORE catastrophe strikes. That's my position.

docbungle

If this is to be viewed as a lie, it has got to be viewed as a very tiny one. I compare it to saying I've read a book, when I've actually only read three quarters of the book and watched the movie.

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Rekna

Shouldn't the American people be able to trust the President to be truthfull and honest to them? When the President makes a statement to the people of the US it should be 100% truth. And this is why Clinton got heat. If such a statement cannot be made then don't make a statement at all. I would not consider dishonesty to be a quality that I would want my leaders to have.

cyrnel

I don't know Rekna. I don't mind them lying when required. Say, for items of national security, but this is just a mess. Taking responsibility goes beyond the few press releases I've seen. Someone should be working to correct problems instead of digging more little holes. This seems like an irresponsible teenager's line of BS mixed with semantics. Covering ass because their planning and/or chain of command is screwed up is lame. It's not perjury, nor treason, but it is very weak. OTOH, that they're unable to respond to natural disasters with fair warning and untold billion$ spent in preparation (or de-preparation with regard to FEMA), and have to resort to weak vagaries to cover ass, now that's negligent at best. Asses should be kicked far beyond one or two fall-guys.

I don't expect we'll see better of either party, and here we are debating Webster definitions.

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djtestudo

We AREN'T going to see better from either party, so that is what we are reduced to until the disallusioned can organize into political forces for change.

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Ustwo

Well at least they got around to correcting their error.

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scout

I agree Rekna but unfortunately none of our public leaders have any qualms about lying out of their collective asses. Honesty eludes both parties and just about all elected officials. Very few stay honest throughout their political careers. The few that do aren't reelected so their careers are short. We the voters don't seem to mind, as the liers and thieves are reelected time after time. This is more our fault than theirs as we see fit to give them the votes needed to be reelected.

host

Ustwo, you seem to be someone who wants to make doubly sure that the "facts" get published.

The "fact" is..... http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html arrived at the opinion in the next quote box. I can accept it, and remind everyone, once more, that Bush's <b>"I don't think anybody anticipated...insert disaster on my watch, HERE"</b> response is eerily similar to his <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2018456&postcount=30">9/16/01 response</a> to the 9/11 attacks.
At this late date, with <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,186634,00.html">Foxnews March 2 Polling</a> revealing the effects of the relatively small amount of accurate, thorough, negative coverage of the Bush regime, compared to what the potential actually is, your "take" continues to disturb me. The sheer volume of factoids that you are required to put aside, or overlook, just to maintain your unwavering belief system is astounding. Rest assured, it will not grow smaller.

Note that Foxnews' own poll result shows a 14 point preference for a shift to Democratic control of the House in the November election. (On TV, Fox actually displayed the numbers as "48 percent" for Democratic party candidates, vs. "34 percent" for Republicans. In print, the best Fox can admit to is:
I agree with you that the AP is "the enemy".....on March 2, the "naughty" AP reported that
Thankfully, and I'm sure that <b>your opinion is, correctly, too.</b> The Washington Post, NY Times, and USA Today, all omitted that pesky 'lil Bush quote from their reporting.....
So....Ustwo, it seems that the only news reporting that was "naughty" enough to threaten your belief system, posted a correction to their "Newly Discovered Video of pre-Katrina Official Briefing of Bush story." Since the "Liberal Media" in the other three reports didn't mention the Bush <b>"No one could have...blah blah blah...</b> quote in question, Bush is off the "hook", as is your belief system....except for those Foxnews March 2 polling numbers...........and these pesky little examples of a "Liberal Media" that wasn't so "one sided" in it's "reporting"....or so obviously "out to get Bush", either.

aceventura3

For the record I do not represent, nor am I spokesperson for the Republican Party, if you have read my posts you know that. I don't know why you would mislead people into thinking my post was some kind of Republican response. Were you trying to lie to prove a point?

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shakran

Your posts have a solid history of representing the right. You may not be a card carrying republican, but you are certainly a republican apologist, and you and the republican party speak with one voice far more often than not.

ubertuber

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ratbastid

ace: I apologize for referring to your post as "the Republican response".

It is telling, however, that the amount of right-leaning posts on this thread is vastly lower than average. I suspect that the majority of right-leaners know this is an unwinnable point.

ubertuber

Ratbastid, I think you might have hit on something with the "unwinnable point" comment. Of course, every party and indeed every politician finds itself in that place at some time... And all of them find a way to disappoint me with their handling of that particular place.

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Ustwo

It is telling but I rather doubt for the reasons you think.

I'd also add the AP corrected their little error in this story, making it something of a non-story.

But continue please...

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Willravel

Enlighten us, Ustwo.

Ustwo

willravel it should be very obvious....

There are people who, if Bush commented on the blue sky would insist he lied about it and the sky was in fact azure, what an idiot he was, how Cheney told him to say the sky was blue, and how he plans to use the lie that the sky is blue to turn the US into a police state.

Most of us have just been ignoring these people.

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Willravel

Are you suggesting that the people you describe when you say "most of us" are simply ignoring this thread? I find that confusing. It's obvious that the accusation of this thread is that Bush is lying, therefore those who would normally jump to Bush's defence would have an easy opportunity if this were such a simple topic. This particular case is more like Bush saying, "The sky is orange", and everyone going "Did he just say what I think he said?". It's difficult to excuse or explain away this case. ratbastid is right in pointing out that this thread has a very low amount of Bush supporters.

89transam

Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar, I'm sure he knows how to use a dictionary.

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Ustwo

My reply was to ratbastid, and the AP did a clarification, Bush was in fact NOT warned of any leavies breaking.

Story = null, but continue....

As a side note, did you know the Katrina relief effort was the largest and fastest in U.S. history?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/spec...tml?page=2&c=y

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host

My advice is to add Bob Woodward to your "list"; the WaPo reporter who comprised half of the investigative team that were largely responsible, for the reporting that brought down the Nixon presidency. Bob Woodward, who enjoyed unparalleled access to the Bush White House during the first term. The Woodward who compromised his own reputation for reproting the news, in exhange for unique access to the White House. Woodward failed to report, for more than two years, that Bush administration officials had revealed details of Valerie Plame's CIA employment, in mid 2003.

Fortunately, Woodward provided a description of the man who ten days after this Jan. 10, 2001 briefing meeting with the Joint Chiefs and outgoing defense secretary William Cohen. Frightening, to me, that when he was about to become the most powerful man in the world, instead of thirsting for as much information concerning the duties, responsibilities and capabilities that he was about to take on as CIC of the U.S. Military, Bush was distracted by the uneaten mints he observed in front of the officials who were briefing him....
Ustwo, even Bush's poodle at Newsweek, Howard Fineman is having second thoughts about his role as cheerleader. Do you ever feel embarassed as you keep up the pretense that the Main Stream U.S. press, owned by just five giant meida corporate conglomerates is somehow operating with a left leaning bias. or as you maintain the pretense that Bush is a capable leader with all of our safety and our other best interests as his #1 priority?

Maybe the lack of posts here is related to some folks having reached the limit of how much they have to ignore to ever more frequently post phrases similar to, <b>"Well....Clinton did blah blah blah.....".</b>

Ustwo

I hear he took a leak too.

Ever been in a long meeting host?

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stevo

Why is no one asking the queston: What happened to the millions and millions of federal dollars that were given to the State of Louisiana and New Orleans over the last decade to improve the levees? Why weren't they improved? Why were they breached if the millions of dollars in federal funding were supplied to the local governments responsible for the upkeep of the levees? Did bush lie here too?

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ratbastid

People are asking that question. Just, not in this thread. This thread is about whether or not Bush lied about knowing about the impending disaster.

host, I call the same "threadjack alert" on you. If we're to have a civil discussion about this, dragging in how Bush handles himself in meetings isn't really cricket. It's interesting, it's just not this thread.

stevo

I waited until now to ask that question becuase it appeared the debate was over. Bush wasn't warned of "breaching" he was warned of "topping" some call it semanitics, but in actuallity, the difference between the two is quite real. Then Ustwo posted the AP correction and we all see what a big stink the was over nothing (as usual) so I asked another question. Sorry for derailing the stopped train.

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