Bush wasn't lying, after all
March 4, 2006 3:21 PM   Subscribe

As a followup to this, I though y'all might be interested to know that the AP has issued a correction. Seems that President Bush wasn't lying about what he had been told about the NO levees, after all.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste (32 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: post as a comment in the other thread. this is a minor semantic quibble



 
What utter misleading nonsense. This is like saying that Bush didn't realize how bad things were in Iraq because he hadn't read a particular memo.

The fact that a major storm threatened to breach the levees was so widely known that National Geographic ran a cover story on that subject months before it occurred that reads like prophecy. If Bush didn't realize this was a concern, it's a more damning condemnation of him than his getting caught in one of thousands of lies. He's the goddamned President of the United States. He and his staff are supposed to be aware of what might happen in a disaster of this magnitude.

As, indeed, they were.
posted by digaman at 3:30 PM on March 4, 2006


Nah...he is perfect and loves everyone. The 75% of the nation who thinks otherwise must be traitors. Everything would work better if you guys would just quit using your brain and quit engaging in critical thinking.
posted by UseyurBrain at 3:30 PM on March 4, 2006


I apologize for any emotional harm I've personally caused the president.
posted by ColdChef at 3:31 PM on March 4, 2006


I love it that Bush's Manga-cheerleaders at this point have to brag when the news is "Bush didn't lie".
man bites dog, and all.
woof-woof.

oh, also: via Drudge
posted by matteo at 3:34 PM on March 4, 2006


"The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun."

Most of the levee failures were caused by overtopping according to the USGS.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "is" is, right?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:34 PM on March 4, 2006


(via kirkaracha)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:35 PM on March 4, 2006


As I said in the original, still-open thread, it's telling to see the apologists harping on the difference between breaching and overrunning. If your best evidence is based on semantics, you've already lost the argument. Oh, and flagged as a double.
posted by MrMoonPie at 3:36 PM on March 4, 2006


mr_crash_davis -

The difference between overtopping a levee and breaching a levee is the difference between slopping water over the rim of a bowl and breaking the bowl.

Trying to argue that the two are the same... well, that doesn't make sense to me.
posted by JB71 at 3:39 PM on March 4, 2006


Really, I am so sick to death of Bush's enablers -- which extends to an FPP like this -- turning matters of life and death into he-said/she-said contests in the blogosphere. It's disgusting.

Bush's staff was apprised of the probability of a levee breach on a number of occasions, even if no one in Washington read that issue of National Geographic.
posted by digaman at 3:40 PM on March 4, 2006


MrMoonpie -

It's not a semantic quibble - there's a big difference in the terms regardless of your political orientation.
posted by JB71 at 3:40 PM on March 4, 2006


Oh, please. I knew the levees could fail. FEMA knew the levees could fail. Freakin' Mr. Bill knew the levees could fail.

That said, I'm pretty sure Mr. Bush wasn't lying. I'm sure he didn't anticipate the levees breaching, despite the predictions of his own government agencies, just as I'm sure he didn't anticipate the 9/11 attacks, despite intelligence warnings that Bin Laden was determined to attack inside the United States, the FBI believed Al-Qaeda might try to hijack planes and crash them into buildings, and FEMA had predicted a possible terrorist attack on New York City.

I'm sure he also didn't anticipate the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, the failure of the Iraqis to greet us with flowers and hugs, the long-term insurgency, or the possibility that Iraq could wind up far less stable and far more dangerous to American security than it was before we invaded. The possibility that he wasn't lying doesn't change the fact that he's dangerously incompetent.
posted by EarBucket at 3:41 PM on March 4, 2006


Does this mean everyone in New Orleans is actually OK?
posted by chunking express at 3:50 PM on March 4, 2006


I was once warned that playing with matches could cause a fire, but I wasn't specifically warned that the fire could burn the house down.

Boy, my parents were angry, but what could they do?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:50 PM on March 4, 2006


Sorry, guys, but the semantic difference here is real. For this particular storm, Bush was advised of the possibility of overrunning versus breaching.

The good news here is this correction is on a Saturday, so the stigma is likely to remain.
posted by mischief at 3:54 PM on March 4, 2006


It wasn’t until the next morning, as the storm made landfall, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had asked about reports of breaches.

Ha! Likely story...
posted by slogger at 3:56 PM on March 4, 2006


"The possibility that he wasn't lying doesn't change the fact that he's dangerously incompetent."

Change 'possibility' to 'fact' and you have a much more powerful message.
posted by mischief at 3:56 PM on March 4, 2006


"Does this mean everyone in New Orleans is actually OK?"

No, it means that sometimes bad things happen which aren't Bush's fault.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:57 PM on March 4, 2006


... but should be.
posted by mischief at 4:01 PM on March 4, 2006


"The difference between overtopping a levee and breaching a levee is the difference between slopping water over the rim of a bowl and breaking the bowl."

I saw some pictures of levees being overtopped in New Orleans, and it wasn't "slopping water over a bowl"... it was "OMG, the entire section is under water!"

If you fill a bowl with water, it doesn't matter much how the water got there. If that bowl then proceeds to leak and break apart at points, because it's made primarily of dried mud, well, that's just common sense.

So maybe Bush didn't lie. He just lacked any semblance of common sense.
posted by insomnia_lj at 4:02 PM on March 4, 2006


Paging planet Earth: The precise words of George Bush were: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." (Watch the clip!) He didn't say, "but the governor assured me the levees were fine."

In fact, the White House had been bombarded with concerns that the levees would breach, including in the federal report mentioned in the story I linked to, and in that meeting caught on videotape. Is Bush claiming that he forgot about sitting in that meeting?

Bush's statement was a lie. Whether he chose to ignore the chorus of warnings because of a single over-optimistic remark is a separate issue.
posted by digaman at 4:05 PM on March 4, 2006


Bush is a very smart man. Stop being mean.
posted by docpops at 4:07 PM on March 4, 2006


This should have been posted in the other thread.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 4:08 PM on March 4, 2006


what bush was told: "sir, the levees might overtop which will cause disastrous flooding."

what bush said: "i don't think anybody anticipated the breeching of the levees."

what den beste says: "but he wasn't told they might breech, only overtop!"

what bush should have been told, and should have understood from any responsible briefing: "sir, the levees might overtop and/or breech which will cause disastrous flooding."

what bush did: continued to vacation.
posted by Hat Maui at 4:09 PM on March 4, 2006


whoops, i mean "breach," of course.
posted by Hat Maui at 4:11 PM on March 4, 2006


Oh, and why the heck wasn't this made as a comment in the discussion of the original post. Oh, mea culpa... it was... by the very person who made this FPP.

Redundant, and arguably Den Worste of the web!
posted by insomnia_lj at 4:12 PM on March 4, 2006


Bush on his own asked about breaches the next day when all the people briefing him in those "multiple briefings" hadn't mentioned it once, and in the video we all saw, he didn't ask one single question? sure. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell, if anyone's interested.
posted by amberglow at 4:12 PM on March 4, 2006


he was tired after all those meetings, Hat Maui


sometimes bad things happen which aren't Bush's fault

no, the fault is generally Clinton's.
posted by matteo at 4:12 PM on March 4, 2006


Bush was sincerely attempting to understand the Katrina threat but fell asleep during Four Sticks.
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 4:18 PM on March 4, 2006


No, it means that sometimes bad things happen which aren't Bush's fault.

A more ringing endorsement there never was.
posted by sonofsamiam at 4:20 PM on March 4, 2006


"See, guys, Clinton didn't really lie, because, strictly speaking, fellatio isn't really 'sexual relations.'"
posted by digaman at 4:23 PM on March 4, 2006


"Sometimes, in all this chaos, upheaval and uncertainty, its important to remember that Im only personally responsible for 86%. Vote George Bush 2008."

also, wont overtopping a levee eventually cause it to fail entirely? Isn't a levee failurebound to cause flooding regardless? If he honestly didn't fore see and plan for a levee failure, doesn't that make him criminally incompetant?

so you've failed to prevent a thousand plus deaths... would you rather it was because you're apathetic, or inept? Can't be a fun place to be for ol' GW.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 4:32 PM on March 4, 2006


I guess it all depends what "anybody" means.

You see, when Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breeching of the levees," what he meant was that Somebody hadn't.

And you have to be pretty powerful, pretty rich, and pretty Republican to be Somebody.

So, while you, I, the people of New Orleans, Louisiana politicians, just about every journalist in America, and those so-called-experts with all their edjumacation warned of the potential for levees to be breeched and flooded in New Orleans during a CAT-5 hurricane -- which Katrina was until shortly before landfall -- well, we're obviously not Somebody.

And Bush only listens to Somebodies... not us nobodies.
posted by insomnia_lj at 4:32 PM on March 4, 2006


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