The Katrina timeline--for those who can deal with the truth of what happened

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

Afternoon

Dozens of local, state, and federal disaster officials meet to discuss FEMA Disaster Declaration No. 1601 that was issued as a result of tropical storm Cindy damages that occurred in July.

They also briefly discussed Katrina – although not quite in the context you might think:

“We’ve got this one storm we’re clearing up, yet we have another in the Gulf,” he said of Katrina, a rapidly strengthening storm that crossed south Florida on Thursday night and is expected to make a second landfall as a strong Category 3 hurricane somewhere between Louisiana and Florida late Sunday or Monday.

The subject of Friday’s meeting was serious, but as is often the case, participants relied on a bit of humor to ease the tension.

“Shouldn’t we just apply for Katrina money now? It would save time and taxpayers’ money,” joked Jim Baker, operations superintendent for the East Jefferson Levee District, one of the public agencies in line for a FEMA check.

Wonder what the group thought about this?

Off and on throughout the morning, Smith and Col. Steve Dabadie, Louisiana National Guard chief of staff, used a hand-held device to keep a check on Katrina’s track.

When the storm began a slight shift to the west, the device was passed from hand-to-hand for others to get a look.

Bet that room sobered up quite a bit after that.

The Mississippi Valley Division of the Army Corps of Engineers activates teams along the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coasts to prepare for a potential response to Hurricane Katrina. (HT: Random 10)

Governor Blanco declares a State of Emergency for all of Louisiana. The President also issues a State of Emergency declaration and directs DHS and FEMA to coordinate disaster relief efforts. Revised 9/8.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 27

Morning

Overnight, Katrina strengthened and was drawing a bead on the gulf coast, moving west-northwest at 15 miles an hour and packing winds of 115 MPH.

Afternoon

A press conference with Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco sounded the alarm. The Mayor urged residents to take the storm seriously saying to residents of low lying areas, “We want you to take this a little more seriously and start moving — right now, as a matter of fact,” Nagin said he would open the Superdome as a shelter of “last resort” for people with “special needs.”

He advised anyone planning to stay there to bring there own food, drinks and other comforts such as folding chairs, as if planning to go camping.

“No weapons, no large items, and bring small quanties of food for three or four days, to be safe,” he said.

Nagin spokeswoman Tami Frazier stressed that the mayor does not want citizens to plan on staying in the Dome—instead, they should make arrangements to leave the city if possible.

Police Superintendent Edward Compass said that looters would be “dealt with severly and harshly and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

By mid-afternoon, officials in Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, Lafourche, Terrebonne and Jefferson parishes had called for voluntary or mandatory evacuations.

Mayor Nagin issued a voluntary evacuation order at 5:00 PM.

Nagin said late Saturday that he’s having his legal staff look into whether he can order a mandatory evacuation of the city, a step he’s been hesitant to do because of potential liability on the part of the city for closing hotels and other businesses. “Come the first break of light in the morning, you may have the first mandatory evacuation of New Orleans,” Nagin told WWL-TV.

The National Hurrican Center warns officials that Katrina is strengthening and will probably make landfall as a Category 4 or 5. This is really scary. This is not a test, as your governor said earlier today. This is the real thing,” said Director Max Mayfield. “The bottom line is this is a worst-case scenario and everybody needs to recognize it,” he said.

National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield calls Mayor Nagin at his home telling him that a mandatory evacuation was needed. He also calls Governor Blanco informing her of the strength of the Hurricane and its potential damage. Revised 9/7

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28

Morning

By 8:00 AM, Katrina, a category 5 hurricane, is headed straight for New Orleans. According to this peice in Editor and Publisher FEMA Director Brown, DHS Secretary Chertoff as well as local and state officials are informed by National Hurricane Director Max Mayfield via electronic briefing that the storm will cause massive damage and flooding – including levee toppings (not breeches) – in New Orleans 32 hours before the eye of the storm makes landfall. Mayfield briefed the President later in the day via video conference.

“Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories, which warned of a storm surge capable of overtopping levees in New Orleans and winds strong enough to blow out windows of high-rise buildings.” Revised 9/10

The Superdome opens at 8:00 AM and begins to take people in.

In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation. The President’s call came just prior to the news conference and occurred after the decision had already been made. for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding. Revised 9/6 (HT: Jay) Lexis-Nexis Subscription needed to access link.

“There doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight,” Blanco said.

The Mayor’s office announces at 9:30 AM that RTA (Regional Transit Authority) busses will pick people up at 12 locations throughout the city and take them to shelters – including the Superdome. This is in accordance with both the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan for the city of New Orleans and The State of Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan Supplement 1B which clearly states that people who cannot be evacuated will be taken to “last resort” shelters such as the Superdome.

At 11:30 AM the President delivers a statement vowing to help those affected by the hurricane.

Governor Blanco requests that the President declare an “expected major disaster” for the state of Louisiana under the auspices of the Stafford Act. The declaration is designed to start major relief supplies flowing immediately to the affected area. Revised 9/8
By noon, the city puts its contraflow traffic system in effect so that both sides of major highways will allow for traffic out of the city.

Afternoon

The Coast Guard Auxillary was preparing to deploy. “William Crouch, Vice Commodore of the Auxiliary Eighth District Central Region stated this afternoon that “units from outlying areas are preparing to depart for the disaster area as soon as the situation becomes clear.”

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state’s National Guard on Sunday. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn’t come from Washington until late Thursday. Revised 9/7

National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield holds a video conference call with President Bush in which he outlines the strength of the hurricane and potential damage. Revised 9/8

By 3:00 PM, more than 10,000 people had either made their way into the Superdome or were standing outside. Those with medical problems were shuffled over to one side of the dome. Everyone else went to the other side:

“The people arriving on this side of the building are expected to fend for themselves,” said Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security director. “We have some water.”

About 150 National Guard soldiers, New Orleans police and civil sheriff’s deputies were patrolling the facility. Some weapons were confiscated.

Officials were settling in for what they predicted would be an incredibly hot and uncomfortable night. They expected flooding on the field and loss of power early today.

But officials were confident they could care for those with special needs.

“I’m not worried about what is tolerable or intolerable,” he [Ebbert] said. “I’m worried about, whether you are alive on Tuesday.”

Mayor Nagin ordered a curfew for the city beginning at 6:00 PM.

Evening

Louisiana Senators send a joint letter to the President thanking him for his actions and requesting that he visit the storm ravaged area “as soon as practical.”

The Coast Guard closes the ports and waterways into New Orleans. “The Guard also moved 40 aircraft and 30 boats and cutters in positions surrounding the expected strike zone, such as Houston and Jacksonville, readying to conduct search and rescue and humantarian missions, the Guard release said. ”

A 10:00 PM Katrina advisory by the National Hurricane Center has the storm moving slightly to the east and weakening.

About 26,000 people are taking refuge in the Superdome. “To help keep them fed and hydrated, the Louisiana National Guard delivered three truckloads of water and seven truckloads of MREs — short for “meals ready to eat.” That’s enough to supply 15,000 people for three days, according to Col. Jay Mayeaux, deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Emergency Preparedness.

Wes McDermott with the Office of Emergency Preparedness reports on conditions inside the Superdome. There are between 8,000 and 9,000 (later reports put the number at 26,000) people with more than 600 people with medical needs on hand.

Also, General Ralph Lupin, who commands the 550 National Guardsmen at the Superdome, reports that an additional 400 people have been sent to area hospitals before the 11:00 PM curfew. Revised 9/10

Louis Armstrong Airport closes late Sunday night.

MONDAY, AUGUST 29

Overnight and Morning

More than 4,000 National Guardsmen are mobilizing in Memphis” to help police New Orleans streets.

The city’s director of homeland security said tonight that officials hope Katrina gets through the region Monday with several hours of daylight left so they can get up in the air and assess the damage.

“We are going to have very limited communication,” Terry Ebbert said. “The first order of business will be life-saving operations.” That may mean relocating thousands of people in the Superdome once power goes out and temperatures start to rise above 100 degrees, he said

At 3:00 AM the National Hurricane Center reported Katrian three hours from landfall with winds of 150 MPH.

Aircraft in position to help assess the damage and carry out rescues:

Aircraft are positioned from Hammond to the Texas border ready to fly behind the storm to check damage after it passes over New Orleans, said Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau, head of the Louisiana National Guard.

Search and rescue operations are being coordinated by the Guard with the state Wildlife and Fisheries Department and Coast Guard poised to help search for survivors stranded by the storm. Guardsmen are also deployed at the Jackson Barracks ready to head into the city using high-water vehicles, Landreneau said.

Director Ebbert said rescue priorities would be given to those stranded in their homes and those hospitalized. “If the storm passes by 2 p.m., Ebbert said, “we have a few hours to get these people out before dark. It may involve some airlifts.’’

Hurricane Katrina strikes New Orleans at 8:00 AM with winds at 120 MPH and a storm surge of 18 feet. Revised 9/8

As the Category 4 surged ashore just east of New Orleans on Monday, FEMA had medical teams, rescue squads and groups prepared to supply food and water poised in a semicircle around the city, said agency Director Michael Brown.

Brown, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, said the evacuation of the city and the general emergency response were working as planned in an exercise a year ago. “I was impressed with the evacuation, once it was ordered it was very smooth.”

Levee break at 17th street floods about 20% of the city.

At 11:00 AM, FEMA Director Brown arrives in Baton Rouge at the State Office of Emergency Preparedness.

Afternoon

FEMA Director Brown sends a memo to DHS Secretary Chertoff requesting the additonal 1,000 FEMA employees engaged in victims assistance (aiding residents in filling out disaster relief forms) and community outreach be dispatched to Louisiana. Brown indicates that the employees have two days to report to LA Homeland Security headquarters. Revised 9/7

FEMA issues a statement urging first responders from other states not to come to disaster area unless there’s coordination between state and local disaster management officials. Revised 9/6

At 1:30 PM, boil order goes into effect for water.

At 1:45 PM, President Bush declares the states of Louisiana and Mississippi “Major Disaster Areas.”

Midafternoon: First reports of looting. TP terms it “widespread.”

At midafternoon Monday, a parade of looters streamed from Coleman’s Retail Store at 4001 Earhart Blvd. The looters, men and women who appeared to be in their early teens to mid-40s, braved a steady rain and infrequent tropical-stormforce winds to tote away boxes of clothing and shoes from the store.

By 2:00 PM, “Wes McDermott, from the office of emergency preparedness in New Orleans, said officials have fielded at least 100 calls from people in distress in the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans.”

At 3:00 PM President Bush said in a speech in Arizona “the federal government has got assets and resources that we’ll be deploying to help you.”

At 3:00 PM, Director Ebbett said “Everybody who had a way or wanted to get out of the way of this storm was able to. For some that didn’t, it was their last night on this earth.’’ He also said that the city had 100 boats to carry out search and rescue operations.

At 3:45 PM Louisiana Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown said this afternoon that it’s too early to give an estimate on damage in New Orleans, because he is unable to get a team into downtown. The water level in St. Bernard Parish had reached the second story of the courthouse. Revised 9/8

By 5:00 PM, hundreds of reports are coming in of people trapped by the flood.

At 6:50 PM, more reports of looting.

Evening

Search and Rescue teams work through the night to bring people to safety.

[Wildlife Secretary] Landreneau said by dawn he will have more than 200 boats in the water, 120 more than he had Monday. He said he has a commitment from Texas for another 50 boats.

Red Cross issues a statement. Expects largest recovery operation ever:

American Red Cross spokesman Victor Howell said 750 to 1,000 Red Cross personnel are now at work on hurricane recovery in Louisiana, and 2,000 more volunteers will be here in the next few days.

The Red Cross will bring in three large mobile kitchens to prepare 500,000 meals per day. There are 40 shelters statewide, housing about 32,000 people, “and you’re going to have more,” Howell said.

Mayor Nagin, in an interview with TP relates a conversation with federal disaster officials. “FEMA said give us a list of your needs,” said Nagin, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “And let me tell you, we’re giving them a hell of a list.”

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30

Morning

Overnight, New Orleans city officials consider whether or not to use the Ernest E. Morial Convention Center as an additional refuge for survivors:

City officials said they might open the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center as a temporary refuge to shelter an estimated 50,000 people made homeless by the storm.

This is the first mention by city officials of using the Convention Center, a shelter not listed in the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan nor listed in any other public statements as a place of refuge for residents. As of 9/7, there is no evidence city officials ever told FEMA or LA Homeland Security officials that they planned to use the Center to house evacuees. Revised 9/7

My Way News reports 4725 LA National Guardsmen deployed on Tuesday. Revised 9/6

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff activates the National Response Plan and declares Katrina an “incident of national significance”:

The National Response Plan (NRP) fully mobilizes the resources of the entire federal government to support response and recovery efforts for state and local authorities – particularly in the event of a catastrophic incident. Secretary Chertoff has declared the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina an incident of national significance – the first-ever use of this designation. Revised 9/7

Water continues to rise with officials at a loss how to explain it.

It is announced that 500 “special needs patients” at the Superdome will be moved by the end of the day “by whatever means necessary.” Also, Director Landenreau says that 350 boats are in the water looking for trapped residents with 60 more on the way from Texas.

By midmorning it is confirmed that 4 people have died at the Superdome; 3 sick patients and one probable suicide.

Prisoner evacuation from two jails begins.

President’s statement on Katrina devastation.

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on 9/7, Fox News Correspondent Major Garrett reports that the American Red Cross was ready to go to the Superdome “on Monday or Tuesday” to assist in the relief of the 25,000 people who had taken refuge there but were prevented by the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security from doing so. According to Garrett and this FAQ at the Red Cross website, the reason given was because their presence “would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.” Revised 9/8

At the request of FEMA, the military begins to move additional ships and helicopters to the region. (HT: Jay) Revised 9/6

TP evacuates - moves to Houma.

In an interview with Tim Russert on 9/4, DHS Secretary Chertoff reveals that the first he heard of the 17th street levee break was “midday on Tuesday.” Revised 9/8

Pentagon spokesman Di Rita issues statement saying “the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs, with at least 60 percent of the guard available in each state. He said about 6,500 National Guard troops were available in Louisiana, about 7,000 troops in Mississippi, nearly 10,000 in Alabama and about 8,200 in Florida.

At 4:30 PM, officials send out a call for anyone with boats to help in the rescue effort.

TP reports that police and firefighters are joining in the looting:

At the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, an initial effort to hand out provisions to stranded citizens quickly disintegrated into mass looting. Authorities at the scene said bedlam erupted after the giveaway was announced over the radio.

While many people carried out food and essential supplies, others cleared out jewelry racks and carted out computers, TVs and appliances on handtrucks.

Some officers joined in taking whatever they could, including one New Orleans cop who loaded a shopping cart with a compact computer and a 27-inch flat screen television. (Um…read the whole thing. You won’t believe it. Ed.)

Director Ebbert announces that work has begun to plug the 17th street levee. (Note: Work on plugging the levee did not begin at this time. It is unclear whether he was told that it was beginning or whether he assumed it was from a conversation with the Army Corps of Engineers who said work would begin that afternoon. Ed.)

Levee repair timeline uncertain. This from National Guard Commander Jeff Smith:

Col. Jeff Smith with the Louisiana National Guard said the Corps has informed the state that they are beginning to plan how exactly to fill the holes in the levee, which observers described as several hundred feet long.

Ebbert says work has started. Smith says work has started on planning. This would be a possible explanation for both Ebbert and the Mayor’s frustration. Could they have misunderstood?

Also, hospitals are being evacuated and rescue operations continue. The Governor made it clear that search and rescue was the highest priority:

Blanco said that while search and rescue operations continued that officials were also getting supplies to hospitals and people who sought refuge at the Superdome, which is receiving more residents as people are rescued. After officials have completed all of their rescue operations, they will begin to assess how to evacuate other people in the city who are in high, dry locations.

People being rescued and others looking for food and water are told to go to the Convention Center by local officials. When they get there they find no food, no water, and just a few police. (First mention of Convention Center shelter by TP at 11:09 PM on Wednesday)

A man in a passing pickup truck from the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries finally directed Wallace and the 50 other evacuees under the overpass to the convention center.

But they would find little relief there.

New evacuees were being dropped off after being pulled from inundated eastern New Orleans and Carrollton, pooling with those who arrived on foot. Some had been at the convention center since Tuesday morning but had received no food, water or instructions. They waited both inside and outside the cavernous building.

The influx overwhelmed the few staffers and Louisiana National Guardsmen on hand. Added 9/5.

Afternoon

At 5:50 PM Bush announces he is cutting short his vacation and returning to Washington.

As of Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the storm had passed over the area, this represented the federal response to date as publicized to the disaster. Here are some highlights: Revised 9/8

FEMA deployed 23 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams from all across the U.S. to staging areas in Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, and Louisiana and is now moving them into impacted areas.

Seven Urban Search and Rescue task forces and two Incident Support Teams have been deployed and propositioned in Shreveport, La., and Jackson, Miss., including teams from Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Three more Urban Search and Rescue teams are in the process of deployment.

FEMA is moving supplies and equipment into the hardest hit areas as quickly as possible, especially water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents, and tarps.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) dispatched more than 390 trucks that are beginning to deliver millions of meals ready to eat, millions of liters of water, tarps, millions of pounds of ice, mobile homes, generators, containers of disaster supplies, and forklifts to flood damaged areas. DOT has helicopters and a plane assisting delivery of essential supplies.

The National Guard of the four most heavily impacted states are providing support to civil authorities as well as generator, medical and shelter with approximately 7,500 troops on State Active Duty. The National Guard is augmenting civilian law enforcement capacity; not acting in lieu of it.

At 6:30 PM Mayor Nagin issued an urgent bulletin:

Nagin said efforts to stop the flow of water at the breach on the 17th Street Canal are failing, which means the floodwaters will rise again.

Nagin said the waters will soon overwhelm the pump, shutting it down. He said the water will rise to 3 feet above sea level – or 12-15 feet in some places of east Jefferson and Orleans parishes.

The additional flooding causes 80% of the city to be underwater.

At 8:10 PM, TP reports that more than 24 hours after it started, looting is now city wide.

“People are leaving the Superdome to go to Canal Street to loot,” Thomas said. “Some people broke into drug stores and stole the drugs off the shelves. It is looting times five. I’m telling you, it’s like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

At 8:55 TP reports that the Army Corps of Engineers is working frantically to try and fix the breach in the 17th street levee.

Mark Lambert, chief spokesman for the agency, said that a convoy of trucks carrying 108 15,000-pound concrete barriers – like those used as highway construction dividers—was en route to the site Tuesday night

The USS Bataan deploys two helicopter squadrons for search and rescue operations in New Orleans. Revised 9/6

At 9:02 PM TP reports that the State Attorney General’s office is denying that martial law has been declared.

At 10:40 PM TP reports that 40 additional state troopers have been deployed more than 28 hours after initial reports of looting.

At 10:15 PM, Governor Blanco releases a statement calling for the evacuation of the Superdome.

She set no timetable for the withdrawal but insisted that the facility was damaged, degrading and no longer able to support the local citizens who had sought refuge in the Dome from Hurricane Katrina.

“It’s a very, very desperate situation,” Blanco said late Tuesday after returning to the capital from her visit, when she comforted the exhausted throngs of people, many of whom checked in over the weekend. “It’s imperative that we get them out. The situation is degenerating rapidly.”

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31

Morning

My Way News reports an additional 700 National Guardsmen from TX, OH, and OK are deployed in LA. Revised 9/6

“Early Aug. 31, an MC-130P Combat Shadow from Hurlburt’s 16th Special Operations Squadron flew a team of combat controllers to the New Orleans airport to set up lights which would allow reopening the runway for nighttime operations. The airport has no electrical power.” Revised 9/6

Governor Blanco called for a total evacuation of the city of New Orleans.

In an interview on Good Morning America, the Governor said “We’ve sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary.”

When asked about looting the Governor said “We don’t like looters one bit, but first and foremost is search and rescue.”

Blanco said she wanted the Superdome — which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people — evacuated within two days, along with other gathering points for storm refugees. The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.

Governor Blanco asks the President to send federal troops to conduct law enforcement activities.

At 10:00 AM TP reports that a spokesperson for the Texas Governors office says refugees from the Superdome will be put up in the Astrodome:

FEMA is providing 475 buses for the convoy and the Astrodome’s schedule has been cleared through December for housing evacuees, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry said.

A spokseman for Homeland Security:

Mark Smith, a Louisiana Department of Homeland Security spokesman, said 3,000 Louisiana National Guard members are helping with the rescue effort and that more guard troops are on their way from other states. The main focus Wednesday morning is to evacuate patients from hospitals and to evacuate the Superdome, where conditions are deteriorating for the estimated 15,000 people sheltered there. (HT: Blueguitar guy) Revised 9/6

Yahoo News:

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she has asked the White House to send more people to help with evacuations and rescues, thereby freeing up National Guardsmen to stop looters.

“We will restore law and order,” Blanco said. “What angers me the most is that disasters like this often bring out the worst in people. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior.”

Afternoon

Governor Blanco announces that Superdome evacuation will begin Wednesday evening.

Department of Social Services Secretary Ann Williamson said the buses should start rolling later Wednesday. About 475 vehicles have been arranged to ferry the evacuees to Houston.

State officials said they hope that bringing in the Army to help with search, rescue and relief efforts will allow National Guard troops to redirect their efforts to restoring order and curtail the widespread looting taking place in New Orleans and elsewhere. “We’re trying to shift our resources,” said Denise Bottcher, a Blanco spokeswoman.

“This is one of the largest, if not the largest evacuations in this country,” said Col. Jeff Smith, deputy director of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

“This (plan) buys us some time so we can figure things out,” said FEMA spokesman Bill Lokey.

At 1:40 PM State Secrertary of Transportation and Development Johnny Bradberry said Lake Pontchatrain has receded by two feet since yesterday as water levels equalized between the lake and the flooded city interior.

“The good news here is that we’ve stabilized. Water is not rising in the city,” Bradberry said.

The feds declare a Public Health Emergency:

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt Wednesday declared a federal public health emergency and accelerated efforts to create up to 40 emergency medical shelters to provide care for evacuees and victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Working with its federal partners, HHS is helping provide and staff 250 beds in each shelter for a total of 10,000 beds for the region. Ten of these facilities will be staged within the next 72 hours and another 10 will be deployed within the next 100 hours after that. In addition, HHS is deploying up to 4,000 medically-qualified personnel to staff these facilities and to meet other health care needs in this region.

Mayor Ray Nagin ordered 1,500 police – or however many officers were still on the force – to leave their search-and-rescue mission Wednesday night and return to the streets of New Orleans to stop looting. Revised 9/8

Governor Blanco issues an Executive Order allowing the National Guard to seize school busses in order to help in the evacuation:

National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Pete Schneider, said the order, signed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco late Wednesday, means “we are going to take the buses. We need to get people out of New Orleans.. . . .Either they will give them up or we will take them.’’ It is unclear whether the Governor is referring to the hundreds of school busses in a New Orleans city parking lot 1.2 miles from the Superdome that contained 255 busses, all underwater. She was also procuring busses from around the state. In an press conference the next day, General Honore says that busses from FEMA have also arrived. (HT: Tony & Junkyard Blog) Revised 9/6

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

Morning

My Way News reports 6500 National Guardsmen from AR, CO, KS, MO, NV, OH, OK, and TX are deployed in Louisiana. Revised 9/6

At 12:30 AM evacuees from the Superdome begin arriving in Houston.

Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard said this morning that the evacuation of the rest of New Orleans was in full swing. At least 70 buses had picked up refugees from the Superdome, and officials were considering using trains and boats to ship people to safety.

At 4:15 AM TP reports that the Coast Guard says it has rescued 3,000 stranded victims from the city.

President Bush calls for “zero tolerance” for looters or price gougers in an interview with Diane Sawyer.

More snafus in attempts to fix the levee at 17th street:

Spokeswoman Cleo Allen of the state Department of Transportation and Development said the agency is coordinating with railroads and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to raise the Seabrook bridge, the Almonaster Ave. bridge and the Danziger Road bridge. Farther southwest, authorities are also trying to raise a bridge at Larose so that a barge loaded with relief supplies can get through Bayou Lafourche.

More National Guard troops on the way:

Lt. Col Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard also said 7,500 guard soldiers from around the country are en route to Louisiana to complement the 3,000 from Louisiana who have been helping with search and rescue operations and security since Katrina struck on Monday.

President Bush agrees to have the federal government pick up the entire tab for relief efforts.

In an interview with NPR’s Michael Seigel, DHS Secretary Chertoff admits he knows nothing of the people stranded at the convention center. Revised 9/6

Afternoon

Governor Blanco announces at a press conference that there are less than 2400 people left at the Superdome.

The Defense Department announces the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops to the Gulf region.

State and Federal authorities begin the evacuations of Charity and University Hospitals. They are halted briefly when shots are fired at helicopters evacuating patients.

In an article on Thursday afternoon, Brian Thevenot of TP reports that officials are starting to get control of the city.

As military and humantarian efforts finally began to take hold, the anarchy that has consumed New Orleans over the past two days, making the city resemble a Third World war zone, had not fully subsided but authorities appeared to have amassed sufficient numbers to seize the upper hand.

Neighborhoods that had been populated by bands of wanderers and armed thieves looked nearly empty, save for police patrols that were non-existent a day earlier. In Uptown, the Central Business District and the French Quarter, substantially smaller crowds of refugees and potential looters found themselves surrounded by ever increasing numbers of National Guard troops and police officers.

Mayor Nagin explodes on live radio, railing against federal relief efforts. If you’ve come this far with me, all I ask is that you read his comments and compare them to what has been reported in this timeline previously.

“You know the reason why the looters got out of control?” Nagin said. “We have most of our resources saving people. They were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. You pull off the doggone ventilator and look down and they’re standing there in water up to their fricking neck.”

“I need reinforcements,” he said. “I need troops, man. I need 500 buses.”

The relief efforts made so far had been pathetically insufficient, Nagin said.

“They’re thinking small, man, and this is a major, MAJOR deal,” Nagin said. “God is looking down on this and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Every day that we delay, people are dying, and they’re dying by the hundreds, I’m willing to bet you.”

Rolling now, Nagin described distress calls he’d heard. Nagin mocked the efforts to block the 17th Street
Canal breach.

“I flew over that thing yesterday and it was in the same shape it was in after the storm hit,” he said.
“There is nothing happening there. They’re feeding the public a line of bull and they’re spinning and people are dying down here.” (HT: Ghosty) Revised 9/6 – moved from Friday to Thursday.

In an interview with Paula Zahn, FEMA Director Brown says he just heard about people stranded at the convention center “a few hours ago.” Revised 9/6

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

My Way News reports that an additional 3000 National Guardsmen from 15 states are deployed in LA. Revised 9/6

In the early morning, 20 deputies and six emergency medical technicians from Loudon County, Virginia were turned away because “neither FEMA nor the Louisiana authorities was willing to act on the request from Jefferson Parish.” (HT: Jay) Revised 9/6

At 9:35 AM in a speech given in Mississippi, the President praises FEMA Director Brown saying “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

State Rep. Karen Carter, D-New Orleans, made an urgent plea Friday morning for gasoline and buses to ferry victims to safety who have been stuck in New Orleans under deteriorating conditions since Hurricane Katrina struck the city four days ago.

“If you want to save a life get a bus down here,” said Carter, whose district includes the French Quarter. “I’m asking the American people to help save a wonderful American city.” Her voice cracking with emotion and her eyes bloodshot from fatigue and distress, Carter said pledges of money and other assistance are of secondary importance right now to the urgent need for transportation.

“Don’t give me your money. Don’t send me $10 million today. Give me buses and gas. Buses and gas. Buses and gas,” she said. “If you have to commandeer Greyhound, commandeer Greyhound. … If you donn’t get a bus, if we don’t get them out of there, they will die.”

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, who is coordinating federal relief efforts on behalf of the National Guard, could not say when people can expect to be rescued. “If you’re human you’ve got to be affected by it, Blum said. “These people, their heartstrings are torn as are yours. (But) the magnitude of this problem is you cannot help everybody at the same time.”

The Coast Guard announced it has rescued more than 4,000 victims of the hurricane and flood.

President Bush visits New Orleans, taking a helicopter tour with Mayor Nagin. According to the Mayor Bush tells him that “he [the President] was fully committed to getting us the resources we need,” Nagin said in the tattered Hyatt hotel next to the Superdome. “I told him I knew we could work together, and he said he understood.”

In an interview with CNN on 9/5, Mayor Nagin says that Governor Blanco resisted a request from the Federal government to nationalize the relief effort when meeting with President Bush aboard Air Force I. Blanco is reported to have asked for 24 hours to “think about it.” (HT: Sue Hanley) Revised 9/6

In a special briefing on efforts to repair the damaged levees carried out by Lieutenant General Carl Strock, Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Chief of Engineers, the General summarized the difficulties he was experiencing in closing the breaches, including the difficulty in reaching the site of the breach by land (land ops couldn’t start until a causeway was built), by water (bridges couldn’t be raised to allow for the huge cranes to pass), and air (helicopters were being used to rescue people). Revised 9/7

NOTE ON MILITARY OPS: It has not been my intention to slight the contributions of our nation’s military in saving lives and relieving suffering during this disaster. The fact is, our armed force’s contributions have been so numerous and so widespread that listing them would double the length of this timeline. Their selfless dedication to our nation’s well being has been on display this past week as dozens of ships, aircraft, medical and rescue teams, and other supporting personnel have taken part in disaster relief. I am in awe of their professionalism and courage.

Rather than detail each operation, I will link to each service’s website where you can find plenty of information detailing their efforts. Revised 9/8

US Navy
US Coast Guard
US Army
US Air Force
US Marines

Don't get confortable and think the worst has past---It hasn't! 

Storm's Over? Think Again!

You know that after Osama and al-Zawahiri viewed the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent mayhem that ensued in New Orleans, they are sitting back in some Pakistani cave toking on a big hookah, laughing their asses off, praising Allah, and stepping up their game to hit the U.S. again. And hard. And soon.

For me, watching Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco handle the New Orleans/ Louisiana debacle is like watching Moe and Curly trying to work a Rubik’s cube. Those two gave me all the relief that half a Tums did the other night after eating three grease laden chimichangas covered in Scorned Woman Habanera Pepper Sauce®. Suffice it to say, after watching this entire fiasco unfold on the Gulf Coast, that I’m not getting the “our homeland is secured” feeling from Homeland Security.

This leads me to think that if we cannot get our act together to handle a CAT 4 storm we saw lumbering toward us for several days, then what the heck are we going to do if al Qaeda sleeper cells, embedded in the US, clandestinely strike us with massive force?

Y’know, I hate to speak for others, but I think the majority of our nation doesn’t even think al Qaeda is a threat to the US any longer. Here’s the unarticulated sleepy vibe you get from most people regarding the immediate menace terrorists pose to us:

1. There hasn’t been another attack on US soil in four years now.
2. The majority of what they’re doing is on the other side of the pond.
3. Their attacks are unsophisticated.
4. Their weapons are crude.
5. The effects of their assaults are benign, and thus . . .
6. They are incapable of levying a catastrophic hit on a major super power like the U.S.

And this is probably just what OBL and his tribe from hell wants you to think—even though they have made it abundantly clear that they are going to attempt to kill at least four million of us, and that they will do it with nuclear weapons which we know are already in their possession. What Osama wants to do to us will make Katrina look like Chucky Cheese. Al Qaeda dreams of an American Nagasaki.

Author Paul Williams is not singing any sleep-inducing lullabies in his latest work, The Al-Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse. Williams’ new book will blister your soul as you read the well-known, truly apocalyptic, yet sinfully unreported data in this heavily footnoted 231-page hot, pithy tome.

Trust me, or better yet, see for yourself that this is not the rambling of some speculative doom saying TBN prophet playing pin the tail on the latest beast. Rather, Williams’ book is riddled with readily available empirical information that he has simply put together to the end that we:

1. appreciate our enemy’s wishes and advances
2. get off our collective butt and
3. take swift and specific action before several major cities become melted glass beds.

Williams makes a hard case that al Qaeda has climbed into bed with the Sicilian Mafia that is helping to float terrorism through the sale of Number Four heroin, the soup de jour with American and European druggies. With this mega-million dollar underwriting, OBL and his sick ilk have purchased, via the Chechen mafia, nuclear weapons they have taken from feebly protected Russian repositories.

To further expedite the eternal night al Qaeda wishes to rain down upon us, they have joined hands with a Salvadoran street gang called Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS-13. And what’s MS-13’s job description from al Qaeda? Well, this violent and rapidly-growing-in-numbers-and-finance gaggle of punks has the job of smuggling nukes and sleeper agents across the Mexican border, which, incidentally, they have been overseeing for quite sometime now.

The bottom line is this: Don’t read Williams’ new book if you don’t want to know:

1. How we know OBL has nuclear weapons.
2. How he got such weapons.
3. If they have already been smuggled into the USA.
4. How nuke smuggling occurs post 911.
5. Why the information regarding a planned nuclear attack has been under-reported by the national media.
6. What the effects of a nuclear blast would be should one rock one of our major metro areas.
7. What major metro areas are on OBL’s hit list.
8. How many sleeper agents/cells in the US are planning the next 911.
9. What steps we must take to ward off a nuclear nightmare.
10. Why al Qaeda has waited until now to launch its next attack on US soil.
11. What the local, state and the federal government must do, like yesterday, to mitigate this present and real threat.
12. That in the last few months, 9,000 plus or minus “special interest” aliens from terrorist supporting countries have been arrested and released on our Mexican border.
13. That it is not if they are going to attack us but when they are going to attack us.

So, here we sit with borders that are more open than the space between Kanye West’s ears, with airports and ports that receive cargo that gets inspected about as often as Rosie O’Donnell does her abdominal workout, and while Hollywood and D.C. play the Katrina blame game and get wrapped around the prop regarding who sucks the least. The terrorists, on the other hand, are staying their course, biding their time, blowing through our borders, getting briefed and fired up in their mosques, and with religious zeal, are looking to put and end to our world as we know it.

My advice to help stave off their hellish desires would be to buy yourself, your congressmen, your senators and your President a copy of William’s book. And bug the crap out of them until they do more about the current deadly terror threat from within.

What the New York Times won't report

Two of the most explosive post-Katrina charges were debunked over the last 24 hours. One of them, that the eeeevil Bush Administration has starved the Army Corps of Engineers for money to maintain and repair New Orleans' levee system, was demolished in that noted redoubt of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the Washington Post:

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in use by barges traveling between the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study.

Landrieu was quoted over the weekend threatening to "punch in the mouth" anybody who criticized the local officials in Louisiana over their response to the hurricane. I doubt she's rethinking that threat in light of this Fox News report from yesterday, but after I first saw it, I definitely thought a few mouth-punches were in order:

[Brit] Hume: [The Red Cross was] Standing by, ready. Why didn't FEMA send The Red Cross into New Orleans when we had all of the people there on that bridge overpass and elsewhere. Why not?

[Major] Garrett: First of all, no jurisdiction. FEMA works with The Red Cross, The Salvation Army and other organizations but it has no control to order them to go one place or the other. Secondarily, The Red Cross was ready. I got off the phone with one of their officials. They had a vanguard, Brit, of trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go where? To the Superdome and convention center. Why weren't they there? The Louisiana Department of Homeland Security told them they could not go.

Hume: This is isn't the Louisiana branch of the federal Homeland Security? This is --

Garrett: The state's own agency devoted to the state's homeland security. They told them you cannot go there. Why? The Red Cross tells me that state agency in Louisiana said, look, we do not want to create a magnet for more people to come to the Superdome or convention center, we want to get them out. So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food, where is the water? The Red Cross was standing by ready, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security said you can't go.

Hume: FEMA does, presumably at some point, have some jurisdiction over some military forces. Of course, the first responders there are the National Guard. Why didn't FEMA send the National Guard in? You heard that cry from many people.

Garrett: FEMA does not have jurisdictional control over any state's National Guard, only the governor does. The governor in this case, Kathleen Blanco, A democrat, did use the Louisiana National Guard for some purposes, did not deploy them in massive numbers initially and they were not used to move any of these relief organizations in and they could have been for the very same reason I talked about earlier, the state decided they didn't want the relief organizations where the people needed it most because they wanted those people to get out.

Hume: But even today we know that Governor Blanco has now decided that a mandatory evacuation may not be necessarily after all. But we can go into that later. What about the use by her of the National Guard to impose law and order during the early looting and all of that?

Garrett: She had a choice, as I am told. She could have taken up the offer from FEMA to federalize all of the activities in Louisiana, meaning that FEMA would be in control of everything. Not only law enforcement, but everything else. She declined to give them that authority. So essentially FEMA was trapped between two bureaucracies. One the Department Of Homeland Security where many of its decisions have to be reviewed and in some cases approved, and a recalcitrant state bureaucracy that wasn't going to give them the authority they needed to make things happen, among them, the National Guard.

Blogger John from Wuzzadem independently confirmed Garrett's story--which, for some strange reason, has not been picked up by any major news outlet other than Fox:

Here's the Red Cross FAQ entry (entitled "Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?") that liberal web sites (and irresponsible politicians) are using to indict FEMA and the USDHS:

Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

Yesterday I called the National Affairs office of the Red Cross (202-303-5551) and talked with Red Cross spokesperson Lesly Simmons, who told me that the shipment was not turned away by the US Dept of Homeland Security, but by this agency:

The Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (LHLS & EP); formally the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness (LOEP), was created by the Civil Act of 1950 and is under the Louisiana Military Department.

Ms. Simmons also told me that the Red Cross has never mentioned any involvement in this incident by FEMA, because FEMA wasn't involved.

Note to the MSM: this is called reporting. I think it might be in some of your job descriptions, but I'd be happy to post a correction if I'm wrong about that.

So here we have the governor of Louisiana, acting out of God-knows-what motivation--probably nothing more malign than bureaucratic cowardice, but that was plenty destructive enough--refusing to send nearby food and water to all those people who were trapped in downtown New Orleans, at the mercy of both the natural elements, and an unleashed criminal element in their midst. And she also refused to give authority to her own National Guard to enter the city in force and end the violence

Again, this has not been reported elsewhere. Can you imagine--can you even conceive of the reaction if George Bush had told the Red Cross to stay away from the Superdome?

But hey, if you're the MSM, there's a simple answer: Doesn't matter. It was all Bush's fault.

Noogie Notes

Bob Denver To Be Buried At Sea, Wash Up In Aruba, Disappear Completely

HEY!
This interesting tidbit from today's Washington Post:

"But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects."

Senator Byrd prepares for the Roberts nomination 

Stop Blaming FEMA 

Baghdad Bobette marshalls Sean Penn and other from her State for duty in Newe Orleans 

And Now--A Little Truth and some Sick Satire

Oh, the lessons we learned from Katrina. President Bush's refusal to invade New Orleans tells you everything you need to know about Republican racist perfidy. The local government's incompetence tells you nothing whatsoever about Democrats' ability to govern at the micro level. Lethal storms can be turned aside months in advance by signing the right treaties. Or so they're saying in the reality-based community.

Check the blogs: They're calling President Bush's response to Katrina "My Pet Goat Part 2." It's a reference to the idea, so beloved of the Michael Moore enthusiasts and Osama bin Laden, that Bush's initial reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks was to give a what-me-worry grin and keep reading a kids' story because he wanted to know how it ended.

These people seem to believe that a complete set of evacuation plans -- including the removal of the entire city, buildings included, to Manitoba -- was slapped down on the president's desk the moment Katrina was just a stiff breeze, and Bush said nope. Call me when gas hits nine bucks a gallon, and besides, the town's just full of Democrats and po' folks.

That's what the frothier elements on the left seem to think. One Air America host said as much; various rappers and actors have blamed Bush for not calling Superman on the hot line and blowing the storm away with Superbreath.

One theory -- and it's an interesting one, as Howard Dean would say -- suspects the administration deliberately flooded New Orleans to test the nation's ability to deal with a nuclear strike. That makes sense. Sure. Why bother to drill to learn lessons that can be applied in other cities when you can drown a city and learn nothing about the hazards of radioactivity? The latter method has the added virtue of a conspiracy, which means there's a good chance someone in the chain will breach the levee of secrecy, leading to what the founding fathers called Super Extra Immediate Impeachment Plus.

Crazy, yes. But this is what it's come to. According to the choir of professional carpers, President Clinton spent half his two terms personally drawing up plans for new levees -- when he wasn't sneaking around Afghanistan in camo paint trying to apprehend bin Laden.

By contrast, the Bush Junta sent 100 percent of the National Guard to Iraq, which meant the 12th Airborne Plunger Brigade couldn't descend to the Superdome with jetpacks and unstop the overflowing toilets. Doesn't matter that New Orleans had hundreds of school buses unused for evacuation -- blame the feds who cut matching funds for bus-driver instruction back in 1927.

This level of incandescent lunacy isn't new. In the '90s there were people who believed that Clinton would use Y2K to herd us into FEMA-run gulags to have bar codes tattooed on our necks, but these people confined themselves to rants at 3 a.m. on Art Bell's radio show. By 2006 their ideological heirs on the left will be the evening lineup of MSNBC guests.

If we learned anything we can take away, it's this: You're on your own. At least keep an emergency kit on hand, the sort of thing Tom Ridge proposed, and which made the smart set hardy-har-har because it contained duct tape.

Don't rely on the government. Four years after Sept. 11, it's apparent that some local governments are not well-oiled machines when it comes to disasters -- more like a box of sand and busted gears. Blame for that can be promiscuously distributed.

Lesson two: The next terrorist attack will not unite us for a warm, hug-filled fortnight. The hard left won't wait 24 hours before blaming Bush, and the country will enjoy the sight of prominent pundits angrier at the president than at the men who nuked Des Moines.

If an attack should happen during the term of President Hillary Clinton, they'll still blame Bush -- and if she wishes to retain her moderate credentials, she'll be canny enough to repudiate the lot. They'll be stunned. They'll be hurt. After all the free-lance hating they did out of the goodness of their hearts! Where can they turn now?

The guy who took over for Art Bell still takes calls.

From Senator Ted (Swimmerboy) Kennedy

"What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died."--Ted Kennedy on Hurricane Katrina

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Blame Bush part XXXIII
Yesterday it was confirmed and reported that Governor Kathleen Blanco kept the Louisiana National Guard from assisting the New Orleans police department, leaving their force of 1,500 (less those who fled duty) to vainly attempt to restore order in the wake of last Tuesday's devastating flooding. About the the same time Louisiana state police were preventing radio repair technicians from entering the city to repair the damaged police scanner system, leaving the NOPD unable to communicate.

It's pretty hard to miss coverage of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's order for forced evacuations of those who remain in New Orleans - it was all over the news. Guess who has already subverted that effort? In a Fox News interview this evening Governor Blanco said Nagin might be the one to order an evacuation, but she controls the resources necessary to enforce it and she will not sign off on the decision. Reuters reports, Not all will help in forced evacuation of New Orleans.

Art Jones, a senior official with the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said state authorities, who are in command of the Louisiana State Police and National Guard, have no plans at the moment to participate in a forced evacuation.

"We personally will not force anyone out of their homes," he told reporters at a briefing

Then this evening Fox New's Major Garrett broke what may be the most damning story of the post hurricane period - The Red Cross was blocked from delivering supplies to the Superdome by Blanco's Louisiana Department of Homeland Security. Read that again... The Red Cross was prevented from getting supplies to the Superdome and the convention center.

Governor Blanco's administration ensured that there was no (or minimal) state presence in New Orleans; no food, medicine, or other need supplies for hurricane victims; and that vital repairs to the city's police scanners could not be completed. All of which would lead one to only one natural conclusion:

It's all Bush's fault...

President Bush and the Katrina Response

The Looney Left has been on fire trying to pin all the problems with Hurricane Katrina on Bush. Remember all the "Bush Stayed on Vacation" nonsense? From Reuters

The Looney Tunes know he is never "on vacation" but it sells well to the gullible... Maybe the power of the picture can refute the idiocy. More...

Bush declares La. emergency

8/27/2005

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on Saturday because of the approach of Hurricane Katrina and his spokesman urged residents along the coast to heed authorities' advice to evacuate.

Bush, vacationing at his ranch, was being regularly updated about the storm, which is expected to hit land early Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency continue to coordinate with state authorities in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, and have prepositioned supplies in areas expected to be affected, he said.

The president's emergency declaration authorizes the FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide assistance in a number of Louisiana parishes, or counties.

For the first time in (I heard) 34 years the President actually declared a state of emergency before the storm even hit. Then he went a step further...

Bush urges safety from Katrina

8/28/05

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush, as he readied the federal government for a massive relief effort, on Sunday urged people in the path of Hurricane Katrina to forget anything but their safety and move to higher ground as instructed.

"We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities," Bush said as the storm roared across the gulf toward New Orleans and other communities. "I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground."

With forecasters warning of a category five storm, the president made sure the federal response would not be delayed by already declaring emergencies in Mississippi and Florida just hours after a similar declaration for Louisiana. Such declarations make federal aid available to assist with disaster relief, but they are rarely made before a storm even hits.

Sorta weird to read that the way history unfolded huh?

Lastly, as has been widely reported, Bush even called Blanco personally and urged her and Nagin to declare a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. Anyone who says Bush was not on top of this is either lying or delusional.... Bush was far more on top of it than the mayor of New Orleans who had to be reminded by the National Weather Service that hurricanes were dangerous.

Of course FEMA, and the idiot who runs it, are a different matter.

Katrina Hatches New Breed of Chickenhawk

"How can these people sleep at night and how can they choke down their food knowing it is purchased off of the flesh and blood of others?" Cindy Sheehan, War Mom

As the floodwaters slowly recede to reveal a thick layer of dead democrat voters, a new breed of chickenhawk has risen from the toxic muck, demanding our children be sent into harm's way without ever having served themselves. This time, the cowardly warmongers are not the bloviating Nazi propagandists of right-wing hate radio, but outstanding members of the progressive community. Brothers, sisters, and sexually ambiguous political comrades they may be, they have nonetheless taken it upon themselves to volunteer our young tots for hazard duty in the devasted gulf region.

Our beloved Maureen Dowd, for instance, thinks the 82nd Airborne should have parachuted into New Orleans through the eye of the hurricane, yet she sat out the entire Vietnam War with a convenient case of chlamydia. The profoundly flatulent Oliver Willis spent Desert Storm shovelling pastries into his porcine cakehole, but he has no problem sending someone else's kid to wade chest deep through raw sewage. Even the saucy Arianna Huffington has joined the neo-chickenhawk brigade, insisting that Bush should have pulled the troops out of Iraq and sent them to Louisiana - a state that poses no imminent threat, and where they'd be welcomed with "flowers in the streets". But I doubt we'll see ol' Zsa Zsa chasing armed looters down Bourbon Street any time soon. She's got a blog to run!

Don't get me wrong. I love these progressive icons as much as abortion itself. Perhaps this sudden spurt of fascism is just a temporary case of insanity, like when the entire political left became flag-waving jingoists for about 10 minutes after 9/11. Michael Moore helped us get through our patriotic dementia, and were back to sneering at the Stars & Stripes before Bush could finish milking his Pet Goat. I only hope liberal intellectuals like Arianna, Oliver, and MoDo quickly regain their senses, lest people start to think they're all a bunch of blubbering hypocrites.

Fascist Stormtroopers Invade New Orleans

In the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a new progressive Eden began to emerge from the watery Hell that Bush's environmental policies created. The opressive socio-economic system created by white slaveowners to keep blacks down was crumbling before our very eyes, and the bright beacon of liberty was at last shining for America's long suffering people of color. Gone were "Law and Order", and other right-wing code words for "get the blacks". Greedy corporations built on the backs of the working poor fled for higher ground, and thousands of liberated wage slaves were free to spend their days in pursuit of intellectual and sexual fulfillment. Food, water, DVD players, and other necessities of life could now be plucked from store shelves like ripe tomatoes, without the obligatory angry glares from racist Koreans. In the blink of an eye, the heavy hand of white opression was finally lifted from the black community, and African-Americans who were born into slavery were now freer than they had been for generations.

Then, the rich white folks in their big mansions up on the hill began to sweat. With New Orleans now a free, democratic society in the truest Chomskian sense, who would work their smog-belching factories? Who would clean their houses and mow their lawns? Who would line their pockets with the blood of the working poor? Desperate, Louisiana's wealthy elite pulled their political strings and had the National Guard sent in to "restore order". Much like Baghdad, New Orleans is now an occupied city under martial law, its citizens terrorized by jackbooted fascists sent to protect the economic interests of the ruling plutocracy. With orders to shoot "looters", the distribution of goods has been taken back from The People and returned to the exploiters of labor. Racial profiling is the rule of the day, with troops returning fire on a disproportionate number of black street gangs. Little old ladies are being dragged from their homes at gun point, their Qurans mishandled and genitals mocked by uniformed, chain-smoking dwarves. Literally overnight, New Orleans has been transformed from a socialist utopia into a totalitarian conservative nightmare.

I, the formerly un-jaundiced president of the Bea Arthur Fan Club, have finally come to see my country for what it really is: Cat Poop. Pandora's Litter Box has been opened, my friends, and the new American Kristalnacht has begun.

What the Hell is Cutey Kathy Harris talking about? Huh??? The Main Stream Media NEVER edits pictures to make people look bad or good. Do They? 

SATIRE ALERT (for the terminally dumb)

John Bolton Has No Teats

The power to make recess appointments is a sacred one, and should be exercised only by a benevolent Democrat president for awarding ambassadorships to campaign contributors and chicks he's banging, without any partisan interference from an obstructive right-wing congress.

Bush has abused this power and crossed into dictatorial waters, essentially circumventing the constitutional process to appoint John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations - a position he's proven to be completely unsuited for. In a scant 24 hours on the job, Bolton has already insulted Secretary General Kofi Annan by showing up to the traditional introductory meeting without the customary kneepads and suitcase full of cash. Such arrogance will only alienate our allies, and runs the serious risk of forcing trusted friends like France to collaborate with our enemies.

One of the first things every child learns is how to play nicely with others. It's a skill that requires a willingness to compromise - that is, bend over and blindly acquiesce without demanding anything in return. Throughout his career, John Bolton has demonstrated that he cannot play nicely with others. Indeed, he's little more than a playground bully who will put the interests of his country above the needs of the International Community. A congressionally appointed envoy to the United Nations should not be a swaggering cowboy, but rather a nurturing, multi-breasted nursemaid upon whose giant teats developing third-world countries can perpetually suckle. Unless I am mistaken, John Bolton has no teats. All he has is a string of Top 40 hits and some rather intimidating facial hair.

So weeks from now, when they crack open George Voiniovich's garage to find the lifeless, blue corpses of Oliver Willis and the senator huddled together in his idling Caddy, you can place the blame squarely upon John Bolton and his unilateralist mustache.

SATIRE ALERT !!!

Al-Zawahiri, Right on Cue

When Dan Rather uncovered shocking evidence that Bush went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard for the entire Vietnam War, "Osama Bin Laden" made a diversionary video appearance that dominated the news for weeks and captured six Golden Globes for Best Documentary. When polls showed John Kerry surging ahead of Bush among heroin addicts, circus freaks, and New York Times Op-Ed columnists, out came another one of the Shrub's Osama lookalikes to scare the crap out of the American sheeple just ahead of the November elections. So when "bizarre weather" forced down a commercial aircraft full of French citizens at a Toronto airport, it was a safe bet that another turbaned stooge would conveniently surface to let Bush off the hook.

Thankfully, all 297 passengers aboard the Air France jet survived, and were found in a nearby field attempting to surrender to a flock of Canadian geese. But with Charles Nelson Reilly making phony terrorist threats in an equally phony beard, everyone quickly forgot about the mysterious storm that brought down an airplane full of rabid Bush-Haters on the same day the Shrub was to begin the longest presidential vacation in American history.

Nine out of ten dentists agree that severe weather is the direct result of Bush's refusal to give the UN regulatory powers over American industries. The French, who used only 30 gallons of water last year nationwide, would be more than happy to help us adopt a more European model of conservation, recycling, and sucking-up to mustachioed dictators. But Bush has chosen to ignore the sage advice of our eco-friendly friends. Now, our children must face a bleak future where their Rice Krispies are saturated with arsenic, the air is unbreathable even in the cold vacuum of space, and Tony Award-winning actors are little more than paid stooges for Halliburton, Inc.

A Journalist Is Murdered

Steven Vincent, "an art critic inspired to write about war after watching from the roof of his New York apartment as the World Trade Center towers fell," was found murdered in Basra, Iraq, yesterday, Reuters reports from New York. Vincent published an article in Sunday's New York Times criticizing British troops in Basra for being insufficiently aggressive in promoting democratic values:

Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.

Vincent was also a frequent contributor to National Review Online, which has collected links to his articles. Blogger Larry O'Connor picks up a pertinent Vincent quotation:

Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq. That is why the terms the press uses to cover this conflict are so vital. For example, take the word "guerillas." As you noted, mainstream media sources like the New York Times often use the terms "insurgents" or "guerillas" to describe the Sunni Triangle gunmen, as if these murderous thugs represented a traditional national liberation movement. But when the Times reports on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they utilize the phrase "paramilitary death squads." Same murderers, different designations. Yet of the two, "insurgents" and especially "guerillas" has a claim on our sympathies that "paramilitaries" lacks. This is not semantics: imagine if the media routinely called the Sunni Triangle gunmen "right wing paramilitary death squads." Not only would the description be more accurate, but it would offer the American public a clear idea of the enemy in Iraq. And that, in turn, would bolster public attitudes toward the war.

Supporters of the conflict in Iraq bear much blame for allowing the terminology---and, by extension, the narrative--of events to slip from our grasp and into the hands of the anti-war camp. Words and ideas matter. Instead of saying that the Coalition "invaded" Iraq and "occupies" it today, we could more precisely claim that the allies liberated the country and are currently reconstructing it. More than cosmetic changes, these definitions reflect the nobility of our effort in Iraq, and steal rhetorical ammunition from the left.

The most despicable misuse of terminology, however, occurs when Leftists call the Saddamites and foreign jihadists "the resistance" What an example of moral inversion! For the fact is, paramilitary death squads are attacking the Iraqi people. And those who oppose the killers--the Iraqi police and National Guardsmen, members of the Allawi government, people like Nour--they are the "resistance." They are preventing Islamofascists from seizing Iraq, they are resisting evil men from turning the entire nation into a mass slaughterhouse like we saw in re-liberated Falluja. Anyone who cares about success in our struggle against Islamofascism, or upholds principles of moral clarity and lucid thought--should combat such Orwellian distortions of our language.

May he rest in peace.

Hello: My name is Karl and I make most members of the "Whackado Wing" of the Democrat Party dribble on themselves when I enter into a room. Heh! 

Karl Rove, The NARCitect

The overlying importance of this whole Plamegate scandal is that it perfectly illustrates how far the Republicans will go to destroy a true American hero. We saw it when they invented a group of phony Veterans known as "The Swift Boat Liars" to besmirch the heroism of Sen. John Kerry, a thrice-wounded Vietnam vet with eight Purple Hearts, 17 Medals of Honor, and a Cap'n Crunch Super Sailor Badge with clusters. We saw it when they smeared the reputation of Scott Ritter, a Green Beret who disguised himself as a middle-aged pervert in order to expose the seedy underworld of internet pedophiles. We saw it when the right-wing controlled media made a laughing stock of the courageous Sandy Berger, a man who risked severe paper cuts to his genitals in order to illustrate how badly security at the National Archives has deteriorated on Bush's watch. And now, the Repugs have shown their true colors once again by blowing the cover of super-duper top secret undercover CIA agent and American Hero, Valerie Plame. Her crime? Telling the truth about Bush's lies.

The inspiration for six Ian Fleming novels and the hit TV series, Alias, Plame's 35-year career as a super-duper top secret agent was what legends were made of. From her base of operations, Codename: Cubicle, Agent Plame spearheaded such major CIA operations as Project Fetch Director Woolsey a Cup Of Coffee and Operation Who Stole a Box of Staples from the Supply Room? In 1996, she singlehandedly thwarted a major terrorist attack by remaining motionless at her desk for several months while slowly tripling the size of her ass. Along with John Deutch and Aldrich Ames, Valerie Plame is one of the few CIA spooks who has earned the admiration and respect of progressives everywhere.

While some repugs are quick to shrug her off as a "pencil pusher" or a "cubicly monkey", the frontline of the War on Terror ran right across Agent Plame's desk. When she pushed her seemingly nondescript pencil, nations burned. Empires rose and fell at the flick of her super-duper top secret wrist. So when the Agency ordered her to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger, she devised a cunning plan to assign the most unqualified, inexperienced boob with zero credentials to the task. It would be the exact opposite of what the Nigerites expected.

After hours of painstaking research, she whittled the list of candidates down to two potentials. Big Bird from Sesame Street refused the assignment, so she placed a call to Mr. Joseph Wilson, Codename: Shmoopsie, - former Ambassador to Lower Slobovia and, by pure coincidence, her husband.

Shmoopsie was incredibly busy helping democrats defeat Bush in the 2004 election, but when Agent Plame, Codename: Mumsy-Wumsy explained the mission to him, he turned his yacht around and headed for Nigeria at once. It was a daunting task, requiring long hours in a third world country with shitty golf courses, but he would do it for Mumsy-Wumsy. He would do it for the country he loved. And he would do it for America, too.

After spending several grueling hours sipping dreadful martinis at the Lagos Hilton, Shmoopsie made two very shocking discoveries:

1. For a nation full of Black people, it was next to impossible to get a decent shoe shine in Nigeria, and

2. Nigerian leaders vehemently denied selling yellow cake, or any other form of tasty dessert to Saddam Hussein.

Alas, Bush's entire reason for invading Iraq was a farce.

Upon reading Shmoopsie's super-duper top secret CIA report, Codename: An Article in the New York Times, Agent Plame proceeded to the office of Director George Tenet, carrying a cup of coffee to confuse snipers, ward off ninjas, and cloak her from Soviet spy satellites. Director Tenet was not only unimpressed by the Jennifer Garner pouty-face Agent Plame had spent months perfecting, but complained that she put too much cream in the coffee. Devastated, she returned to her Base of Operations, but vowed to continue working behind the scenes to expose Bush for the lying liar he is.

When she found out days later that Robert Novak had blown her cover, she immediately suspected that Rove was behind it. Aside from her husband, the Agency, the barista at the Langley Starbuck's, the entire cast of Cats, most of Washington D.C., and that guy who printed the "Kiss Me, I'm Married to a CIA Operative" T-shirt she gave to Shmoopsie for their anniversary, Rove was the only person who knew of her super-duper top secret identity. Obviously, this was his revenge for Shmoopsie's completely impartial criticism of Bush's illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Sleazy tactics indeed, but business as usual for the Bush junta. They ruined Wen Ho Lee, and now they had ruined her.

In the twelve months since Rove destroyed Agent Plame's career, Mumsy-Wumsy and Shmoopsie have suffered an endless nightmare of TV appearances, speaking engagments, magazine spreads, and lucrative book deals. Karl "The NARCitect" Rove's immediate termination will go a long way to repay these modern day Rosenbergs for the unjustice done to them, but it will never repair the damage they've inflicted on the War on Terror, a federal jobs program soon to be helmed by President Hillary Clinton. What Rove did amounts to treason, and not the noble kind of treason where you sell out your country or side with the enemy. Nothing short of his prosecution and incarceration will get us back on the Roadmap to Winning the Peace.

UPDATE--It was a small twister that leveled the boathouse and my neighbor got it on tape--which he sent to BayNews 9 and we got to see it on TV---Big Whoop! 

Ugly, no? 

The former boathouse 

Hurricane Blogging

Dennis

As I write this, about the only thing that is going good is that the power is still on. Hurricane Dennis missed us here in the Tampa Bay area but we are now getting pounded by the outer bands. The tide is about three feet above normal. We are getting sustained winds of 40 knots plus with gusts that have to be in excess of 60 knots. This has been going on all night and it is now almost 8 in the morning and it seems that it will continue this way until much later this morning. One can only imagine what the folks in the Panhandle are in for when the main portion of the storm makes landfall.

The roof of my boat house is no more. Most of it is resting on the boat itself, with the rest pretty evenly distributed among my neighbors docks and yards.. This is going to be a major issue when the winds stop as to how to get those portions of the roof off the boat and what remains of the dock. About 65 feet of my seawall has busted out and a good portion of the land against the wall is now slipping into the bay. The seawall is about three feet thick (concrete) and one can only imagine what the hydrostatic pressure must have been to bust out that big a section of the wall. I have a new and exciting leak in the front of the house that seems to be from water getting into the siding of the house and not from the roof. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like to try and find where this water is coming from. But coming it is, by the bucketful. Some of these outer bands are just wind but others are wind and rain with rainfall rates in the 3 to 4 inches per hour rate. Would you believe that these bands are moving at around 50 mph?

And the Hurricane missed us??????

Oops—sorry just had to stop for a moment as a giant piece of stucco that covers the ceiling in the hallway just landed on the floor. And the bad news continues as there are now three different locations where water is dripping off the ceiling. It is now raining like a mutha!

I gotta tell you that this is worst than any of the four storms we ducked last year. Much worse.

Want some more good news? Because this is Sunday I have to get Debbie in to the Oncology Center between 8:30 and 9:30 for her Nuprogen shot.

I’ll be soliciting donations later.

France=Roadkill 

An Open Letter To France

Dear France,

You probably don't remember me but we met at a party a number of years ago. I still recall the tone of your voice and the way you looked me up and down before pronouncing my outfit "quaint". I could tell that you were very important (and busy) by the way that you laughed and turned back to Belgium and Canada after you said it. Still you made quite the impression on me.

That is why when I learned of your recent disappointments, I felt that I had to write you. Losing the 2012 Olympics to London after all of that effort must have been devastating. I know that you and England have a long rivalry. This had to really sting. A lot. This is the third bid in a row that you have lost right?

Then there is the matter of Lance Armstrong and his utter domination of the Tour de France. How a testicularly challenged American heathen can continue to trounce the athletic flower of French manhood is beyond me.

And as if your collective luck wasn't bad enough, along comes that virulent strain of snail-gonorrhea that has decimated escargot production. Have the God's no mercy?

To add insult to injury, David Hasselhof's new reality show was not picked up for a new... oh wait, that's Germany... Sorry.

And all of your disappointments are not recent, I know. How long has it been since Jerry Lewis has made a movie? Losing a screen legend like this, before his time, must cause irreparable damage to an already shaky national psyche.

On the international front, that damn cowboy George Bush went right ahead and invaded Iraq even though you forbade it! What arrogance!

French women are shaving and bathing more. Berets are losing ground to the baseball hat. Where does it all end? I cannot rightly say.

All I can offer is this advice: Keep your nose head up and soldier on. When I say "soldier on" I don't mean like you have done during actual wars. I meant... maybe "soldier on" is a poor phrase to use. How about "keep truckin' "? Yes, that's it. Keep truckin' until we meet again.

Sincerely,

Fate

P.S. Keep f---ing with me and see what happens next.

Hello 

Guest post by Jeanene Garofolo.

No one actually asked me to post here, but then again no one said I couldn't, so prepare to be Garofolized, rethuglicans!

What a surprise - the Chimp Executive Oaficer can't get his oversized head (or his undersized brain) around why it is that Muslims, who we all know are usually a peace-loving people, would actually lash out at the flocks of lilly-white Aryan sheep in the US and UK. How's this for an explanation: We're attacking them! What else can they do in the face of this regime's oppressive policies?

The whole f**king world hates us because the neocons pulling the strings of the BushCo hegemonistration decided that a good response to the events of 9/11 would be to bomb the shit out of any country that has substantial oil reserves, resists converting to their perverted fundamentalist version of Christianity, or pissed off one of their family members in the past. So they just pissed away all the goodwill and sympathy this country enjoyed on September 12, 2001. Way to go, tards.

All right, so maybe the purple-fingered zombies who voted in the rigged election in Iraq say they like us, but what else are they going to say? How honest would you be if some right-wing BushCo mouthpiece from Fox News shoved an electronic phallic symbol in your face, screaming questions at you while a trigger-happy American jarhead was standing just a few feet away with a loaded weapon?

And what about President Lame-Brain's domestic policies? Well, let's see - we have the so-called "Patriot" Act (talk about an Orwellian name - do you even know Orwell's work? Have you even seen 1984?), freedom of speech is now verboten. How else do you explain the the fact that Air America is having trouble getting sponsors?

Who said "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"? Was it Orwell? I don't remember hearing that line, but it sounds like something right out of one of his screenplays. But here in Jesusland, dissent isn't allowed, so we're basically being deprived of our right to express our patriotism. And no, I'm not talking about phony, flag-waving "Oh this is the greatest country on earth" patriotism, I'm talking about hard-core dissent. I'm talking about letting people know just how much this country really sucks. Now that's patriotic.

So why can't you people see the solution? We just wait till we're attacked again - and you know we will be, the way we're pissing people off. But this time we don't do anything in retaliation. We just sit back and enjoy the goodwill. Then the real patriots launch a massive, coordinated show of patriotism by sticking it to the crooks in the White House as loudly and as often as possible. No holds barred, man - the stolen election, the ties to corporate criminals, the inescapable similarities to Hitler - we let it all hang out.

Think about it: Every country in the world will be standing in solidarity with us, one of the most patriotic - truly patriotic - and peaceful countries in the entire world.

With ideas like this, I should be the freaking president. Dream on, wingnuts.

Clear-Precise-and On Point

by L. Brent Bozell III
July 6, 2005

When Sandra Day O’Connor announced her intention to retire from the Supreme Court, Washingtonians gathered with one thought: the circus has come to town.

Reporters quickly assured viewers this "titanic battle" that is guaranteed to be knock-down, drag-out, wall-to-wall ugly. They didn’t wonder: why does this always happen with Republican nominations, but not Democratic ones? In 1993, President Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was calmly approved by a vote of 96 to 3. In 1994, Clinton nominated Stephen Breyer, who was confirmed by a vote of 87 to 9. By contrast, all hell broke loose with Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, with 58 senators against the one, and 48 votes against the other. The same pattern occurs with Attorney General nominees: 42 votes against John Ashcroft, 36 against Alberto Gonzales, and zero against Janet Reno. Why?

It’s simple. Republicans have been willing to grant Democratic presidents their right to select nominees of their choice, while Democrats have used an explicitly ideological standard since the 1987 trashing of Robert Bork: if you’re conservative, you’re disqualified – period.

These Democrats are emboldened because on high-profile, non-electoral fights like this, liberal bias flies fast and furious in the newsrooms. A classic example can be found in the work product of staunchly liberal National Public Radio reporter Nina Totenberg, who has tried to ruin two conservative Supreme Court bids.

In 1987, she took a bitter ex-girlfriend’s diary and ruined Douglas Ginsburg’s nomination by forcing him to admit marijuana use at Harvard in the 1960s and 1970s, after which a parade of politicians from Gingrich to Gore admitted the same, with no career damage. (The Didn’t Inhale President came later.) In 1991, Totenberg took a bitter former employee (and according to some, wanna-be girlfriend) named Anita Hill and forced a new set of hearings around Hill’s unsubstantiated tales of sexual harassment by Thomas. But when Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick came forward with their (far more serious) charges against Bill Clinton, Totenberg’s compassion was nowhere to be found.

While partisans on both sides gear up for battle, everyone should acknowledge that the "mainstream" media are going to echo the sentiments of any liberal special interest group against whoever is nominated by President Bush. Even on the one relatively peaceful Republican nomination in recent times – Papa Bush’s awful 1990 selection of David Souter, now a solid liberal on the court – liberals in the press sounded now-comical alarms. Dan Rather panicked with Senator Paul Simon: "Is there any doubt in your mind that [Souter's] views pretty well parallel those of John Sununu's, which means he's anti-abortion or anti-women's rights, whichever way you want to put it?"

The most perverse form of media slant emerges when "reporters" warn that conservatives have a "litmus test" for nominees, implying liberals have never voted strictly on an ideological basis. Those massive Republican majorities for Ginsberg and Breyer (and Reno) ought to rebut the idea that Republican senators are "litmus test" voters, but the media are a Ted Kennedy echo chamber – boorish and predictable – on this issue.

In the first hours after O’Connor’s retirement, CNN political analyst Bill Schneider was already implying only the right used a litmus test. In a story using a graphic titled "A Litmus Test," Schneider recounted how Republicans want no more David Souters: "Conservatives were outraged when he turned out to support abortion rights. Many liberals denounce the idea that a nominee should have to pass a litmus test on the abortion issue." Then came Ted Kennedy, supposed litmus-test hater, who said with a straight face (and no CNN rebuttal): "I don't set up a litmus test for any particular nominees. I have voted for judges which have been pro-life." Unmentioned by Schneider: Kennedy voted not only against Thomas, Ashcroft, Gonzales, and so on, but also against supposedly "anti-women’s rights" Souter. (He was confirmed 90 to 9.)

In 1994, the Media Research Center’s Nexis research of the terms "litmus test" with "Supreme Court" in the three news magazines, as well as the Washington Post and New York Times, was eye-opening: 111 uses from 1987-1992, but only ten uses in Clinton’s time up to the Breyer confirmation process. Most of the disparity came from the newspapers: 54 to 3 in the Post, 44 to 5 in the Times. Translation: During the Reagan-Bush years, there was a defined ideological standard to be met by nominees. In the Clinton era, there was apparently no ideology to consider.

In 1994, Nina Totenberg sat with anchor Ken Bode during live coverage of hearings on Stephen Breyer the "centrist," with Bode complaining Reagan and Papa Bush emptied "the law schools of very conservative Republicans." Totenberg replied "the Clinton administration, at least so far, has not done that at all."

I bet you even Ted Kennedy laughed at that one.

This one's for you Tidd.

Guess when this happened

Okay, contestants, when did this news story break?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNN) -- The Bush administration's plan to launch a military strike on Iraq ran into plenty of flak in the American heartland Wednesday. At a town meeting held in St. John Arena at Ohio State University and aired exclusively on CNN, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice encountered a noisy, opinionated crowd and considerable opposition to another war with Iraq.

Powell was drowned out at one point by a group chanting, "One, two, three, four, we don't want your racist war," as he tried to explain U.S. policy to the audience of 6,000.

The heckling became so intense at one point that Powell interrupted CNN's Judy Woodruff and said, "Could you tell those people I'll be happy to talk to them when this is over. I'd like to make my point."

Similar outbursts greeted Rumsfeld and Rice as they laid out again a U.S. position that is familiar to those who have followed the building crisis in the media.

They said the United States would prefer to see a peaceful resolution and hopes that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will make significant progress when he visits with Iraqi officials this weekend.

But if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein doesn't allow U.N. arms inspectors to have unrestricted access to all weapons sites in Iraq, they reaffirmed that a U.S.-led coalition will respond with military force.

How many times....?'

While those opposing a "racist war" were a tiny, if vocal, minority, there were many others in the audience who agreed with a veteran who asked if "we're going to do it half-assed the way we did before?"

A caller from Oklahoma echoed that sentiment, asking, "How many times are we going to send our children and our children's children to fight Saddam Hussein?"

"We've spent seven years containing him at no loss to U.S. lives," Rumsfeld said, adding that an attack would reduce the threat of "chemical and biological weapons that will pose a threat to your children and grandchildren for the future."

Another caller noted that the U.S. encouraged an uprising in southern Iraq but did not help those who responded, and that they were subsequently "slaughtered" by Iraqi troops."Our policy has been to support opposition groups, and it continues to be our policy," Rumsfeld began, but he was drowned out by chants of "Bull----! Bull----!"

Another member of the audience screamed at the chanters, "Shut up!" One young man asked Powell why the United States is willing to attack Iraq while ignoring actions by other countries. Powell responded, "No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing. He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators."

Powell scolds questioner
As shouts erupted from the audience, he added, "I'm really surprised that people feel they need to defend the rights of Saddam Hussein." "You're not answering my question, Mr. Powell," the questioner said. Powell said, "I suggest, sir, that you study carefully what American foreign policy is. Every one of the violations has been pointed out on what is not right, and I would be happy to spend 50 minutes with you after the forum to explain it."

Rice told the audience that should military action be necessary, "the cardinal principle of the planning of this operation has been to seek to minimize civilian casualties." Obviously, that's not possible (to eliminate them altogether), especially when you're dealing with someone who uses people as human shields. But we have no intention of trying to wreak havoc on the Iraqi people."

One heckler who made his way to a microphone asked how Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice could sleep at night, knowing that innocent Iraqis would be killed and injured by any military strike."We will not send messages to Saddam Hussein with the blood of the Iraqi people," he said. "If you want to deal with Saddam, deal with Saddam, not the Iraqi people."

'What democracy is all about'
"What we are doing," replied Powell, "is so that you all can sleep at night. I am very proud of what we are doing. We are the greatest nation in the world ..." He stopped as the audience rose and applauded.

"... and what we are doing," he resumed, "is being the indispensable nation, willing to make the world safe for our children and grandchildren, and for nations who follow the rules."

A caller from Germany who identified himself as a member of the U.S. armed forces, told the panel that he agreed with what they were trying to do. "And if lives need to be lost," he said, "let it start with mine." Although surprised by the opposition they encountered, the officials adjusted to the noise level and the probing questions.

"This is a tremendous example of what democracy is all about," Rumsfeld said. "People expressing opposition ... would not be allowed to do this in a number of countries, including Iraq."

A State Department spokesman played down the tone of the meeting, and said Powell, Rice and Rumsfeld "enjoyed it. They came away feeling that the overwhelming majority of the audience was very supportive of the goals of the administration."

If you guessed 2002, you're wrong. In fact, this whole exercise is a cheat.

The story is from Feb 18, 1998. And the cast of characters was not Powell, Rice and Rumsfeld. It was Madeleine Albright, Sandy "Scissorhands" Berger and William Cohen.

Fascinating how evil and dangerous Saddam Hussein was during the Clinton presidency. As Albright said:

No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing. He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators.

But today's historical revisionists say Saddam was no threat, and that Bush lied (Downing Street memo, blah blah blah).

Hypocrisy is always ugly.