Today Bush showed a new level of callousness that is mind
blowing. While talking to reporters he had to really stretch in order to pat him
self on the back.
The President was asked when he knew the storm was severe.
He told reporters:
I knew a big storm was coming on Monday, that’s why I
addressed the nation on Monday morning.
Now this is the first statement that really got me
thinking, so I went back a few weeks in time. The storm hit on the morning of
Monday August 29. If he is trying to gain brownie points then saying he knew
about it that morning would be sure to make him look more ignorant to the facts
of this storm.
The Monday before the storm hit was Monday August 22. On
August 23, the
National Hurricane Center issued a statement that Tropical Storm
twelve had formed over the Bahamas. The following day, the National Hurricane
Center updated the status of this storm to Tropical Storm Katrina, becoming the
eleventh named storm of the season. The following evening, on Thursday the 25
the storm made landfall in Florida as a category 1.
Friday, August 26 is when the storm really changed on
everyone. That is when it kept picking up strength and started heading towards
the gulf.
So, we can now rule out Monday August 22 as being the day
the President address the nation about this storm. Now if he would have made
this statement on Monday, August 29, then he would have been kind of late
(something that would not be shocking from him), considering early in the
morning on that day was when Katrina was already coming to shore.
The earliest statement I can find on the White Houses web
site about Katrina is from Saturday August 27, when he just issued a press
release about a preemptive declaration of emergency for the area. You can view
that statement
here.
Now this could have been just a mistake in days, after all
five weeks of vacation does make the mind grow weak. I said he showed how
callous he was today and that came right after he made this false statement
about when he decided the storm was severe.
After making the false answer, the President quickly added
in that signing the emergency declarations before the storm hit was
“extraordinary, most Presidents wait until after the storm hitsâ€ÂÂ.
So he not only admits that he knew this storm was severe
before it even hits, but that it was so severe that it caused him to take a
preemptive action against it. Now where does that lead us in the days following
Katrina when our President was strumming a guitar and eating cake with John
McCain?
The President in his foolish way of trying to make himself
look good has actually hurt his own defense in the lack of response to this
disaster. He most likely figured that he would get some good sound bites out of
this interview, but in fact he possibly built more evidence against him.
Crooks and Liars has the video clip of this interview.
Please go over there and check it out, and also notice the expressions on Mayor
Ray Nagin’s face in the background. He certainly seems like he did not want to
be there.