The Katrina Video

From today’s Washington Post:

Three days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans, President Bush appeared on television and said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." His staff has spent the past six months trying to take back, modify or explain away those 10 words.

Given the lengthy time they spent trying to rationalize the 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about uranium in Africa, they should be highly experienced in this effort.

The release of a pre-storm video showing officials warning Bush during a conference call that the hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast posed a dire threat to the city and its levees has revived a dispute the White House had hoped to put behind it: Was the president misinformed, misspoken or misleading?

The video leaves little doubt that key people in government did anticipate that the levees might not hold. To critics, especially Democrats but even some Republicans, it reinforces the conclusion that the government at its highest levels failed to respond aggressively enough to the danger bearing down on New Orleans. To Bush aides, the seeming conflict between Bush's public statements and the private deliberations captured on tape reflects little more than an inartful statement opponents are exploiting for political purposes.

"This makes it perfectly clear once again that this disaster was not out of the blue or unforeseeable," said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who has been critical of the handling of Katrina. "It was not only predictable, it was actually predicted. That's what makes the failures in response -- at the local, state and federal level -- all the more outrageous."

The Bush Presidency has been marred by repeated instances along these lines. It is increasingly difficult to believe that anything he says on any subject is accurate. The failure to admit error only exacerbates the situation. We now have a political environment in which half the population automatically discounts everything he says while the other half blindly accepts his every statement. Given the nationwide support Bush enjoyed following 9/11 this is a disheartening accomplishment.

Tom Toles in The Washington Post gets the final word: