Once More Into the Breach

Mark Kleiman sums up just about perfectly how I feel about the whole Katrina fiasco, the "gotcha" videotape and the resultant pile-on.

I think it is somewhat accurate to say that the video conference isn't enough to technically convict Bush, simply because of the semantics between levees "topped" versus "breached." Naturally the Bush apologists are doing their darndest to draw that point out. the problem is, it doesn't exactly exonerate Bush either...

At first blush, a fair point. Bush was warned that the levees might be topped, not that they might be breached, so he wasn't wrong to say later that no one anticipated that they'd be breached. Is it plausible that the press, in search of a good story or a "gotcha," would elide the difference? Sure.

[...]

But there's just one thing. Bush's job title isn't "Chief Weather Forecaster." He's supposed to be the Chief Executive. His job wasn't to guess what might happen, but to make sure that the country was ready to deal with whatever did happen. The fact, if it is a fact, that no one assigned a levee breach a probability of over 50% doesn't in any way absolve Bush and the people working for him from the responsibility for not having plans in place to deal with it if it came to pass.

The President failed miserably, and his "I don't think anyone anticipated" line was a miserable and dishonest cop-out.

Imagine just as an exercise that we'd had an actual CEO running the country instead of an overgrown frat boy. He's at a briefing, with Michael Brown present, at which Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center says that it's likely that the levees in New Orleans will be "topped" by Katrina. Here's a part of the dialogue that might follow:

The President: "Topped"? What's that?

Mayfield: Water comes over the top of the levees.

The President: Does that mean that the whole city floods?

Mayfield: Not necessarily, sir. Not unless the levees are actually breached. The worst case is that the levees are so weakened by the water washing over them that they give way completely.

The President: How likely is that?

Mayfield: We're not sure. Maybe the Corps of Engineers has some estimates, but we haven't seen them.

The President: Of course you aren't sure. But give me a range. Is it less than 5%? Would you give me 20-to-1 against it?

Mayfield: No, sir.

The President: Right. Then we'd better be ready for it if it happens. (Turns to Brown.) Are we? How much of the city would be underwater if that happened? How many people would we have to evacuate? Do we have enough capacity to handle an evacuation that size? How fast can we acquire that capacity? Where do they stay while they're waiting to be evacuated? Is there enough food and water in place? Where do we put the evacuees once we get them out? Who has the contingency plan, and who has the authority to order it into operation? How much warning would we have? What sort of monitoring is in place?

Brown: (Mumbles incoherently as the President piles on the questions.)

The President: Oh, for Chrissakes! You mean we're don't even have a plan for the worst case? You're just sitting there and hoping it doesn't happen? You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie! Now you've got six hours to get me answers to those questions, or I'm sending you back to measuring horse-cocks or whatever the hell it was you used to do. Capisce?

At that point, of course, our hypothetical President gets and stays on top of the situation until he's sure that there's either a plan in place or someone in charge with the authority to improvise one. And he keeps asking people, as the storm news comes in, whether the levees are holding.

The actual President, of course, stayed on vacation and accepted vague assurances that everything was being handled properly until he saw otherwise on television. And then he tried to alibi by saying that no one "anticipated" a levee breach. And now his spear-carriers are quibbling about the difference between Bush's having been warned about levee- breaching during the meeting in the video or before the meeting in the video. Feh.

It boils down to this—either Bush is in charge and actively taking a role in keeping the country safe, from natural disasters or terrorism—or he sits idly by at the head of the table and worries only about covering his ass when things go badly. I know which theory I subscribe to, I just find it interesting that his "supporters" are happy to trumpet the same thing...

Also: Josh Marshall isn't willing to buy the rehabilitation of Michael Brown.