I Don't Think Anybody Anticipated the Breach of the Levees . . .

Why is Mr. President's infamous "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" quote photoshopped onto the base of the Andrew Jackson monument at the "set," I mean Jackson Square? Here's why.

Yesterday a video was released of a pre-KTMB landfall tele-conference on 28 August 2005 between FEMA, the National Hurricane Center, and Mr. President--who was vacationing for the month of August at the Crawford, Texas "set." (Hey, that sounds sort of French to me.) Max Mayfield of the NHC expressed a "very big concern" whether the flood protection system would hold off the impending storm surge of Lake Pontchartrain from overtaking New Orleans. Mayfield tells the officials he wants "to make it absolutely clear to everyone that there is potential for large loss of life . . . in the coastal areas from the storm surge." Former FEMA Director Michael "Scapegoat" Brown (check out the section on his IAHA tenure) echoed and reinforced Mayfield's grave warnings to Mr. President.

Watch the video footage for yourself. How much more obvious did these warnings need to be? Did Mr. President simply mis-speak when he made his levee quote on Good Morning America? Was Mr. President not paying attention at the pre-storm briefing? Was Mr. President impaired while at the briefing?

Didn't this whole "we had no idea this could happen" episode at the Texas "set" happen once before in August 2001 regarding another horrific catastrophe on American soil? Apparently learning from history hasn't happened in the past five years.

Conveniently upon release of this footage, Mr. President is currently out of the country touring India and Pakistan. Nothing to see here. Move along.


UPDATE: The WaPo offers this analysis on the release of the video.