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Via Crooks and Liars, Bob Harris looks at Bush’s Declaration of Emergency and doubts his own senses:

I checked the parish map against the White House’s own press release, posted on their own site. I have tried to figure out how this is my own mistake, but I can’t find it. And the results are frankly so bizarre I had to make the graphic in order to properly show you.

Welcome to upside-down-land: the areas at risk for Katrina were quite remarkably the areas not included in Bush’s declaration of emergency.

Larry Johnson:

While watching the MSNBC program, CONNECTED, COAST TO COAST with Ron Reagan, a man from the Evergreen Foundation was on air spinning the myth that the President had to “beg” the Governor of Louisiana to take action. Having been on this show several times I called one of the bookers, Susan Durrwatcher, to alert her to the fact that this man was misrepresenting what happened. I offered Susan the following objective, documented facts…. Susan thanked me for my “opinion” and said “we just have a different perspective”. Stunned, I asked her by what standard of journalism that an objective fact was mere opinion? I asked her to simply look at the documents and correct the record. She declined.

Think Progress has a Katrina Timeline.

This may be important as the Bush whitewash picks up steam.

Update: From Crook and Liars, Keith Olbermann’s video timeline.

Apparently Rovegate has given the White House press corps a taste for raw meat. They’re asking White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan the really tough questions:

Q: I just want to follow up on David’s questions on accountability. First, just to get you on the record, where does the buck stop in this administration?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President.

I’ve heard a recording of the exchange. McClellan sounds like he’s asking a question rather than making a statement.

In this administration, the buck stops anywhere but the president.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman:

[I]f 9/11 is one bookend of the Bush administration, Katrina may be the other. If 9/11 put the wind at President Bush’s back, Katrina’s put the wind in his face. If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina — and all the rot and misplaced priorities it’s exposed here at home.

These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending “intelligent design” as a theology than practicing it as a policy.

…

The Bush team has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be another rainy day. Just spend money. You knew that sooner or later there would be a rainy day, but Karl Rove has assumed it wouldn’t happen on Mr. Bush’s watch — that someone else would have to clean it up. Well, it did happen on his watch.

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency — without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.

I’m a few days behind on watching video clips online. Watch this interview with Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, from Sunday’s Meet the Press.

There’s a transcript here:

We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history.

Watch the whole thing. Don’t worry, there are no pictures of dying babies or dead bodies floating by. But it will break your heart.

Holy cow. I try not to watch anything on Fox News. It’s bad for my blood pressure. But I’ve been hearing about this clip for days. Go to this story at Crooks and Liars, and watch the video. It will probably take a few minutes for it to download. It’s worth the wait:

Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera were livid about the situation in NOLA as they appeared on [Hannity and Colmes]. When Hannity tried his usual spin job and said “let’s get this in perspective,” Smith chopped him off at the knees and started yelling at him saying, “This is perspective!”

Daily Kos has a list of FEMA headlines that defy belief:

FEMA won’t accept Amtrak’s help in evacuations

FEMA turns away experienced firefighters

FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks

FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel

FEMA won’t let Red Cross deliver food

FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans

…

FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid

FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board

FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck

FEMA turns away generators

FEMA: “First Responders Urged Not To Respond”

Each of the headlines is a link to the full story.

Via Dori Smith: former first lady Barbara Bush says things are working out “very well” for New Orleans evacuees:

In a segment at the top of [an NPR radio program] on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.”

Then she added: “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

Oh, what fun! It’s like a great big camp-out!

Readers at Ric Ford’s Macintouch web site report that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requires a current version of Microsoft Windows software if you want to apply for disaster assistance online. Reader Gary Mullins:

My 90-year old mother sat out Katrina in her brother’s home next door in Diamondhead, MS, about eight miles from the Mississippi coast where the hurricane’s eye hit. They survived without injury but with massive destruction to their homes, and my mother has lost most of her possesions. I brought her to my home in California yesterday and this morning went to the FEMA website to register to start the assistance process.

To my dismay, our Federal emergency agency requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and only IE 6, to use the website for disaster assistance.

Reader Todd Del Priore:

I tried the latest Safari, IE [for Macintosh] and Firefox, none work. Heaven help all the Mac users in the South… assuming they have power.

Macintosh users aren’t the only ones left out. Users of Linux, older versions of Windows, and other alternatives to Microsoft’s current operating system offerings are left in the lurch, too. IE 6 runs only on recent versions of Microsoft Windows.

FEMA’s web site includes a list of charities for those making donations to help the victims of Katrina. Sploid.com notes:

FEMA is directing Katrina donations to none other than the Rev. Pat Robertson …

FEMA has released to the media and on its Web site a list of suggested charities to help the storm’s hundreds of thousands of victims. The Red Cross is first on the list.

The Rev. Pat Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” is next on the list.

When I checked, Robertson’s operation had been moved down to third on the list.

The Bush Administration’s “culture of life” talk seems kind of hollow right now. On HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, television actor Bradley Whitford said he had received $250,000 worth of federal tax cuts since 9/11. Discussing the tragedy in New Orleans, he said:

They’ve revealed themselves as inept in preparation, at a time when our country needs protection most. And with the pictures we’re seeing, they’ve revealed themselves as — I think we see that the Republican agenda leaves a lot of people behind. You mentioned that these people are a bunch of Jesus freaks. Where is the Christianity?

…

If it’s not Christianity, what do these people believe in? Their religion, their religion, is supply-side economics. That is the religion. And if you think about it — with George Bush, before 9/11: tax cuts. After 9/11, is it national security, terrorism? No. Tax cuts — for me. And I guarantee you, the estate tax is coming up. Will any sacrifice be made for the infrastructure? Will any sacrifice be made for our soldiers over there? No! More tax cuts. That is his Jesus.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says the victims in New Orleans were killed by contempt:

[T]he federal government’s lethal ineptitude wasn’t just a consequence of Mr. Bush’s personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn’t forthcoming?

…

Which brings us to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In my last column, I asked whether the Bush administration had destroyed FEMA’s effectiveness. Now we know the answer.

…

[T]he undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA’s preparedness programs.

You might have expected the administration to reconsider its hostility to emergency preparedness after 9/11…

But the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh’s successor.

Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh’s college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency’s director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.

That contempt, as I’ve said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.

The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren’t caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen?

At the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’ harrowing play set in New Orleans, the shattered Blanche Dubois looks up, with fear and hope, into the eyes of the doctor who has come to take her away. She tells him, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

This week, strangers from all walks of life stepped forward with a helping hand for the people of New Orleans. Ordinary citizens called the Red Cross and other relief organizations with donations large and small, to help suffering people along the Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration played the role of the heartless Stanley Kowalski.

Apparently the administration’s cruel indifference isn’t polling well. So they’re doing the only thing they know how to do: they’re trying to shift blame to state and local officials:

Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country’s emergency management.

…

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

…

Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government.

On the streets of New Orleans, Blanche Dubois met a woman selling “flores para los muertos” — flowers for the dead.

In the America of George W. Bush, that’s increasingly becoming a solid business opportunity.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:

I don’t think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn’t rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn’t get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I’d argue, our current leaders just aren’t serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don’t like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can’t-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn’t dry. Bye, bye, American lives. “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,” he told Diane Sawyer.

…

Why does this self-styled “can do” president always lapse into such lame “who could have known?” excuses.

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.’s prewar reports.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans’s sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy’s uneasy fishbowl.

…

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle … lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans — most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first — they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich:

We can all enumerate the many differences between a natural catastrophe and a terrorist attack. But character doesn’t change: it is immutable, and it is destiny.

As always, the president’s first priority, the one that sped him from Crawford toward California, was saving himself: he had to combat the flood of record-low poll numbers that was as uncontrollable as the surging of Lake Pontchartrain. It was time, therefore, for another disingenuous pep talk, in which he would exploit the cataclysm that defined his first term, 9/11, even at the price of failing to recognize the emerging fiasco likely to engulf Term 2.

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But on a second go-round, even the right isn’t so easily fooled by this drill…. This time the fecklessness and deceit were all too familiar. They couldn’t be obliterated by a bullhorn or by the inspiring initial post-9/11 national unity that bolstered the president until he betrayed it. This time the heartlessness beneath the surface of his actions was more pronounced.

You could almost see Mr. Bush’s political base starting to crumble at its very epicenter, Fox News, by Thursday night. Even there it was impossible to ignore that the administration was no more successful at securing New Orleans than it had been at pacifying Falluja.

A visibly exasperated Shepard Smith, covering the story on the ground in Louisiana, went further still, tossing hand grenades of harsh reality into Bill O’Reilly’s usually spin-shellacked “No Spin Zone.” Among other hard facts, Mr. Smith noted “that the haves of this city, the movers and shakers of this city, evacuated the city either immediately before or immediately after the storm.” What he didn’t have to say, since it was visible to the entire world, was that it was the poor who were left behind to drown.

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On Thursday morning, the president told Diane Sawyer that he hoped “people don’t play politics during this period of time.” Presumably that means that the photos of him wistfully surveying the Katrina damage from Air Force One won’t be sold to campaign donors as the equivalent 9/11 photos were. Maybe he’ll even call off the right-wing attack machine so it won’t Swift-boat the Katrina survivors who emerge to ask tough questions as it has Cindy Sheehan and those New Jersey widows who had the gall to demand a formal 9/11 inquiry.

But a president who flew from Crawford to Washington in a heartbeat to intervene in the medical case of a single patient, Terri Schiavo, has no business lecturing anyone about playing politics with tragedy.

Chief Justice Rehnquist has died. George W. Bush and Pat Robertson get another chance to reshape the Court in their own image.

Rehnquist was certainly part of the reliable conservative wing of the court, but he was rarely as radical in his views as Bush icons Scalia or Thomas. Bush can replace the 80-year-old Rehnquist with someone much younger, who will steer the Court and the country for decades to come.

Confirmation hearings for John Roberts begin this week. Watch closely.