There’s been considerable debate for six months about what Bush didn’t know about Hurricane Katrina and when he didn’t know it, which makes the newly-released video something close to a smoking gun.
A newly leaked video recording of high-level government deliberations the day before Hurricane Katrina hit shows disaster officials emphatically warning President Bush that the storm posed a catastrophic threat to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and a grim-faced Bush personally assuring state leaders that his administration was “fully prepared” to help.
The footage, taken of a videoconference of federal and state officials on Aug. 28, offered an unusually vivid glimpse of real-time decision making by an administration that has vigorously guarded its internal deliberations.
The lead headline at CNN.com right now reads, “Transcript shows governments underestimated Katrina.” That’s false. The transcript shows that the various government agencies recognized exactly how serious Katrina was, but also shows a detached president who was confident that everything would work out fine because, well, he said so.
“I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm,” Bush said.
The spin from the White House is, to put it mildly, unconvincing. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said a newly discovered transcript demonstrates how Bush “was very much engaged that day and throughout the days following.” More accurately, Bush listened to a briefing, asked no questions, and gave a brief and unreasonably confident pep talk about how “prepared” government agencies were. Indeed, let’s not forget that the seriousness of the crisis didn’t begin to “sink in” for Bush until Dan Bartlett put together an easy-to-understand video montage for him on a DVD, a few days after the levees broke.
It’s worth noting that this information, while extremely damaging, is not entirely new. A transcript of this video was made available to Congress months ago. But, just as Abu Ghraib didn’t capture the public’s attention until photos were released, the video of the pre-Katrina briefing helps drive the point home: Bush was, and is, clueless.