Apparently, Bush knew that Katrina was a hurricane, and that hurricanes do terrible damage (especially to cities lying below sea level). The scandal - the scandal! This truly was a mystery to all beforehand, as indicated by all those who decided to stay behind. My information though is that Louis Farrakhan hasn’t yet made his victory lap celebrating the foreknowledge of the levee breaches.

But seriously. I don’t think anyone countered otherwise. There was sufficient information out there that even I knew what a hurricane on a particular trajectory could do to the City of New Orleans. Further apparent, and I think truly scandalous, is that New Orleans’ Mayor Ray Nagin had no idea as to any of this. FEMA’s reaction was slow and cumbersome, and no one apologizes for it. But let’s remember the elected officials closest to the disaster who could have done the most to prevent the loss of life failed miserably. Doubtlessly FEMA needs to be cleaned out, but so does the Louisiana’s goveror’s office and Nagin’s desk. Doing a quick comparative fault analysis, I’d attribute to the federal government 20% responsibility for the flopped disaster recovery, and to the local and state government 80% fault, and I think that’s being generous to the local and state governments.