Video recordings prove Bush lied about Katrina

I almost get tired of writing it: Bush's first answer to any question is a lie. In this case, his mealy-mouthed defenses in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina have been proven - proven - to be lies.

The Associated Press reports on recorded conversations demonstrating that much of what Bush said after Katrina nearly destroyed New Orleans was simply untrue, especially the lie that nobody anticipated the levee breaches.

Linked by secure video, Bush's bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

"I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

--Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."

--Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility -- and Bush was worried too.

What, really, is there to say anymore about George W. Bush? The man is weak, incompetent and dishonest. Bush knew - knew - that his own emergency officials were anticipating exactly what came to pass in New Orleans as the result of Hurricane Katrina. Even after these grave warnings, he remained on vacation and even dilly-dallied with birthday cake and a guitar while poor, black people drowned. As their bodies lay uncollected on the streets of an American city, Bush looked into television cameras and lied about what he knew and when he knew it.

George W. Bush is a disgrace.