At Crooks and Liars,:
Keith put together a video time line that jumps back and forth between different days and shows the spin by Chertoff and others coupled with the reality on the ground.
...and thence to BobHarris.com
Picking up on a thought bouncing around back at TMW after a Chris Floyd post, I thought I'd find out for myself exactly which Louisiana parishes were and were not included in George W. Bush's declaration of emergency effective August 26th, which you can also reach by clicking the map itself.
I checked the parish map against the White House's own press release, posted on their own site. I have tried to figure out how this is my own mistake, but I can't find it. And the results are frankly so bizarre I had to make the graphic in order to properly show you.
Welcome to upside-down-land: the areas at risk for Katrina were quite remarkably the areas not included in Bush's declaration of emergency.
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I can't believe with all the
I can't believe with all the documentation out there of the Mayor's and Govenor's requests for help, along their autherization of military intervention, that the Roveian guard presists with the counterspin reverse blamegame (i'm starting to really hate hearing that word) This amounts to a total diconnect from reality.
 I can't believe with all
I can't believe with all the documentation out there of the Mayor's and Govenor's requests for help, along their autherization of military intervention,
Three major shortfalls.
The military was a passed over opportunity for the third category, but this isn't leaglly simple, and the governor of Louisiana had near total control of the decision. She did not authorize the military to arrive to do policing, either by accident or deliberately. She says it was an accident, but to do so would have ceded major authority to the federal government, and she clearly didn't want to do that.
(observe that the national guard is legally distinct from the regular armed forces when it comes to doing civilian policing, and is commonly used in such situations rather then the armed forces, but the national guard, under the control of the governor, wasn't as ready to go as the Army)
The regular armed forces did not need special authorization to deliver supplies and to do rescues, which they started doing immediately.
My favorite defense."So? He
My favorite defense.
"So? He fucked up too!"