The Gulf Between Rhetoric and Reality

"Even with full funding in recent years, none of the flood-control projects would have been completed in time to prevent the swamping of the city, as Democrats yesterday acknowledged. But they said Bush's decision to hold down spending on fortifying levees around New Orleans reflected a broader shuffling of resources -- to pay for tax cuts and the Iraq invasion -- that has left the United States more vulnerable. . . .

" 'Flood control has been a priority of this administration from Day One,' said White House press secretary Scott McClellan, adding that the administration in recent years has dedicated a total of $300 million for flood control in the New Orleans area. Beyond that, he dismissed questions about specific projects as mere partisan sniping. 'This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics,' McClellan said."

Today's Visit

Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush hopes his tour of Gulf Coast communities battered by Hurricane Katrina will boost the spirits of increasingly desperate storm victims and their tired rescuers.

"The president's visit Friday also was aimed at tamping down some of the criticism that he engineered a too-little, too-late response."

Bush's first stop is in Mobile, Ala., for a briefing, then an aerial tour of the damage in Alabama and Mississippi. He then takes a walking tour of Biloxi, followed by aerial tour of Louisiana hurricane damage. Before returning to the White House, he is scheduled to make a statement, around 4 p.m. EDT, at the New Orleans airport.

CNN reports that Bush has now added some sort of walking tour of New Orleans, but has no details.

White House Briefing reader Bill Galey e-mailed me a good question: "Is this the time the bubble finally fails? Dare the White House attempt to shelter POTUS from *real, actual survivors*?"

More on the Levees

I noted in yesterday's column that Bush, in his early-morning interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, made a startlingly inaccurate assertion: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Several editorials jumped on Bush's statement as a sign of Bush's floundering (see below), but the news columns of major newspapers were oddly silent.

One exception was a New York Times story by Scott Shane and Eric Lipton which used the quote to bolster the theory that "a crucial shortcoming" of the government response "may have been the failure to predict that the levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of the city would be breached, not just overflow."

But that's a technical distinction, and a fairly minor difference.

Mark Schleifstein, the environment writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, e-mailed me this morning: "For days in advance of this storm, everyone from the mayor of New Orleans to the governor to [National Hurricane Center Director] Max Mayfield gave a clear message: a Category 4 hurricane will overtop the levees. . . .