A little catastrophe music

A recent email from MoveOn.org mentions that Bush "campaigned, attended birthday parties and played guitar" while Hurricane Katrina bashed New Orleans, and I couldn't help but notice the parallel between Nero plucking the lyre while Rome burned and Dubya pickin' n' grinnin' while New Orleans sank. The differences are instructive regarding executive protocol: during a firestorm, play the lyre; during a hurricane, play the guitar.

The video revealing that Bush was briefed about possible levee breaches has been dismissed by Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke as "nothing new or insightful." He said that "most transcripts of discussions had already been made available to congressional investigators examining the response to Katrina." Dzzzzzzzzzz. Now, did a little warning buzzer go off when you read that? The investigators learned from the transcripts that Bush had been briefed, and they weren't concerned that, four days after Katrina made landfall, Bush said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees"? Did the investigators actually read the transcripts? Or were they anticipating that the public would never find out how much the President knew? Surely the investigators would know how the public would react if we learned about the briefings. Move over, Downing Street Memo. Now there's the Crawford Briefing.

I expect that conservative bloggers' reactions to the video are uniformly "This is old news." Okay, you're right. The investigators learned nothing new from the video. But how did news like this get old? They thought it wasn't important enough to report? Based on what criteria?

I've actually reached the point where I'm no longer appalled by the amount of fibbing by the Bush administration. I've started feeling bad and embarrassed for them. They so are the Not Ready For Prime Time Players. Even Condy Rice, a smart, smart lady, doesn't seem to know when it's not a good time to fib. Maybe if the Bush administration could start fresh all over again in 2001, with all of the knowledge they've gained since then, we would have an administration making much wiser decisions.