More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html
I know the left thinks they're in the middle of totally kicking Bush's ass, but I've noticed a fairly suprising level of dissent in the ranks of the mainstream media. The article linked above is one such example. Normally, it takes the MSM a long time to accept and report on anything that's not directly damaging to the Bush administration. The fact that they're reporting it already suggests to me that the evidence of local failures is going to be overwhelming. Similarly, the Democrats' refusal to participate in investigations indicate that they know things are going to look bad for them, and are already trying to spin reality into a “sham.”
I have to admit, that does show that the Democrats are better than I thought. I had previously ruled out the idea that they have any capacity to learn, whatsoever. Their attempts at discrediting the investigation before it even starts suggests that they learned something from Able Danger. When their bumbling set the stage for 9-11, they decided to put some of their operatives on the 9-11 comittee, make it look very respectable, and squash any proof of their failure they could manage. That backfired. So, new strategy... Just discredit the investigation from the get go, that way, when your failures are brought to light, they're not credible.
In any case, on to the article. A lynchpin in the liberal assault on Bush is that he cut funding to levee projects, even as the noble Louisiana leadership begged him to consider the poor black babies. An oft cited number is the $27.1 million Louisiana requested for Army Corps of Engineers levee projects, as compared to the $5.7 million they were actually given. This is as far as the left is willing to look, because the rest of the story isn't so useful to them.
Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic. Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.
So, that's not good to mention. We're supposed to believe that Louisiana is being nickel and dimed underwater, even as they do their very, very best to get their levees up to spec. Now we see that they've got $748 million to spend on a project of dubious worth. The $27 million they need for levee work amounts to about 3.5% of that total budget.
But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years.
I just love Clinton. Any time you need him, there he is, doing a worse job than Bush did. In any case, this little fact, which is completely ignored, gives us two important points to consider. Not only was Clinton better positioned to deal with this impending problem, but Bush proved to be more aware of it.
Bush can approve whatever spending Louisiana wants, a year ago, or two years, or whatever. Levees don't get built overnight. The funding, the project design, the actual work... That needs to have been done years back. Maybe not a full five years, but pretty close. If this problem was going to be solved, it would have been best done during the Clinton years, rather than in the chaos of post 9-11 America.
[A]fter a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.
It's an ongoing pattern. Wherever you look, Louisiana Democrats are grabbing at huge chunks of cash, chunks that dwarf the $27.1 million they were supposedly “begging” for to do levee work.
The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle.
Low-income black neighborhoods. Who's looking out for you, low-income blacks? Mary Landrieu? No. Rush had a caller today, a 55 year old black woman, and she had a comment on the busses that Ray “Hip-Hop” Nagin forgot about, and left to get flooded. "I bet you those busses was runnin' on election day." Goddamn right, ma'am. Please tell your friends. Tell them until they stop voting for people who consider them electoral slaves.
Now, check out this: http://thepoliticalteen.net/2005/09/08/pelosiphillips/
How fucking great is that? Nancy Pelosi is questioned by a reporter, becomes hostile, and accuses her of being on the White House payroll. That's literally how Nancy Pelosi thinks it works. If you're not agreeing with her completely, and carrying her message, you're basically a corrupt and bribed mouthpiece of the Bush administration.
PHILLIPS: What about all the warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers years ago saying there’s a problem with these leeves, there’s a problem with this city.
PELOSI: Kyra if you want to make a case for the White House you should go on their payroll.
PHILLIPS: I’m not making a case for the White House by all means, believe me.
Yup. Don't state facts, Kyra, you shill. Just let Nancy run through her idiot talking points, write them down, and repeat them when Nancy isn't there to do it herself. That's reporting Kyra, none of this “asking questions” or “stating facts” crap. Are you a liberal or not, Kyra? Jeez.