The university newspaper, the Daily Reveille, was particularly atrocious today. The front page featured "Science vs. Spirit", with the subtitle "Katrina was God's cleansing for some, just weather for others".

If it wasn't bad enough to have a paper making a front-page item out of the ravings of an obvious lunatic, it was shown that even some of the students agree:

Uh huh. But there's no wickedness at all in cherishing the death and suffering of your fellow human beings, without knowing anything about what they believed, desired, or did, because they happened to live in the same city as a bunch of people who had lifestyles you didn't approve of, and because glorying in the suffering validates your own superstitions. A lot of religious groups in my area were pitching in to help the survivors as best they could (in fact, in greater numbers than the purely secular groups), but wow, when you read things like that, it's hard not to feel a burning rage towards religion in general.

I was unprepared to deal with this level of evil, despite having seen it touted before by a number of other religious organizations, so I skipped on. Then I reached the Letters to the Editor section. It had two letters. The first was a non-stop rehash of Republican talking points (titled 'Criticism of President incorrect', and bashing another writer for being 'uninformed') about the Katrina response... which would be fine from an opinion standpoint, except that every single 'fact' presented was wrong. Sheer, 100% lies, from beginning to end. It was actually kind of stunning to read. The second didn't focus directly on the response, but stopped long enough to bring up another couple of falsehoods.

It's very depressing watching the successful functioning of the wingnut spin machine, but the nice thing about spending time on your own blog is that if you do it right, you suddenly have a wealth of linked references at your fingertips when you run across a topic you've covered. It didn't take me long at all to write my own letter to the editor (albeit with less fancy formatting than I used here), complete with references they can check. I find myself wondering if they'll actually publish it; it's long, perhaps too long, but (if I may put modesty aside) I think it's a good sight higher quality than the stuff that has been flowing through there.

Letters to the Editor incorrect

Without getting into an extended debate about blame, I would like to correct some of the factual inaccuracies presented in the letters to the editor on Tuesday, September 13 (which ironically began with an attack on another writer for being uninformed, and were wrong on almost every factual count relating to the Katrina response). References are provided for each correction at the end, so it isn't necessary to take my word for it.

1. "The President requested control of the La. Natl. Guard the Friday before the hurricane. Our idiotic governor refused."

   Specifically, Bush requested complete control over all local police and National Guard units, a request that in effect would have placed New Orleans under Federal martial law. Whether or not this would have been a good idea is quite debatable, but is completely irrelevant to whether or not personnel and supplies could be provided -- it is not required to send Federal resources (including troops) on relief missions, resources that were actively requested on August 26, and again on August 29, and eventually dispatched (without that control) on August 31.

2. "Two thousand public school buses sat in parking lots in New Orleans."

   The actual number is approximately two *hundred*, not two thousand. The maximum number of buses that could possibly have been present is about 320, assuming no major additions to the fleet were made since 2003. Also, in 2003, 70 of those buses were in repair, and not functional. A similar ratio is probably true in 2005.

3. "The people could have been evacuated if Mayor Nagin had shown some fortitude..."

   Assuming 300 buses were actually available, with drivers, and were double-packed to 100 people per bus, that would have only evacuated 30,000 out of the over 100,000 people stranded in New Orleans without cars. A full evacuation would have required 2,000 buses, which is possibly where the erroneous number in (2) came from. In addition, there was no place to take them; the buses that were used were used only to take residents to the Superdome. The hurricane response plan that has been a work in progress for the last two years had not yet found a way to deal with this fundamental problem of poverty.

4. "[...] as usual, no solutions are offered by the Democrats [...]"

   The Democrats have in fact offered numerous suggestions, though most of the ones requiring Federal cooperation have been rejected by the Bush administration or by FEMA, though one of which as finally been forced to take place:

   1. Have Brown fired and replaced with someone with actual experience in emergency management. This finally mostly happened on September 9, when he was replaced with Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Thad Allen. Brown then resigned on Monday.
   2. Use a fleet of experienced boaters with specialized rescue boats. 1000 boaters and 500 boats were organized by Democratic La. State Senator, Nick Gautreaux. They were turned away.
   3. Reduce taxes on gasoline to help affected citizens. Retain the estate tax so funds will be available for assistance. Both ideas have been rejected by the Bush administration, which is now pushing simultaneously for maintaining taxes on the working class (gasoline) while pushing for a tax break on the extremely wealthy (estate).
   4. Coordinate people with individual rooms to spare with people who need temporary housing. MoveOn assembled the hurricanehousing.org housing assistance program and toll-free hotline on their own without Federal assistance.

   There are, of course, many more examples, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.

5. "Maybe Bush didn't give New Orleans the money to fix the levees, but neither did any other president."

   No other president had cut funding as sharply, nor diverted so many National Guard troops and their equipment. According to the GPO figures, funding proposed by the President for "Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity (Hurricane Protection)" were for each year:

   Year	President	Funding
   1996	Clinton	$12.5M
   1997	Clinton	$13.3M
   1998	Clinton	$17M
   1999	(data not found)
   2000	Clinton	$16M
   2001	(data not found)
   2002	Bush	$7.5M
   2003	Bush	$4.9M
   2004	Bush	$3M
   2005	Bush	$3.9M
   2006	Bush	$3M

    

6. "[...] neither she [Blanco] nor the mayor of New Orleans were going to declare mandatory evacuations until Bush threatened to do it himself if they didn't."

   Actually, Blanco was on her way to the press conference where she was going to announce the mandatory evacuations when Bush called her. She notes in the 9am conference that Bush called "just minutes before", which was confirmed by McClellan in his 9/7 press briefing when he noted the time that Bush called as "around 9:00 a.m.", and described it as "a good conversation". I find it incredibly improbable that "a good conversation" for a few minutes just before her press conference worked out to threats so severe that she radically altered her plans on the spot. No transcript or recording of the phone conversation has been released in any case to support such a claim. It is much more likely that she was about to issue the order whether or not Bush called.

I hope that these facts, supported by the references below, serve to clear up many of the falsehoods that have been spread about the hurricane response.

References

[1] Wikipedia, Hurricane Katrina Timeline:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hurricane_Katrina
    The Posse Comitatus Act and Homeland Security, John R. Brinkerhoff, February 2002:
      http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Articles/brinkerhoffpossecomitatus.htm

[2] Times-Picayune, 2003.09.05:
      http://nolassf.dev.advance.net/newsstory/o_bus05.html
    Confirmation in 2003, La. Dept. of Education:
      http://www.doe.state.la.us/lde/uploads/2253.pdf

[3] Kansas City Star (Knight-Ridder), 2005.09.11:
      http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12613786.htm
    City of New Orleans Hurricane Emergency Management Plan:
      http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26

[4] CNN, "Admiral takes over Katrina relief", 2005.09.09:
      http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/09/katrina.washington/
    MyDD, rescue boats turned away, 2005.09.04:
      http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/9/3/17282/81965
    White House Press Briefing (estate tax), 2005.09.06:
      http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050906-5.html
    Reuters, "Delay: No support to roll back gas tax", 2005.09.06:
      http://tinyurl.com/dl43h  (Reuters URLs are very long, sorry)
    MoveOn, Hurricane Housing:
      http://www.hurricanehousing.org/

[5] Media Matters, 2005.09.09 (hurricane funding):
      http://mediamatters.org/items/200509090006

[6] CNN transcript of Blanco's press conference, 2005.08.28, 9am:
      http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/28/bn.04.html
    White House transcript of McClellan's press briefing, 2005.09.07:
      http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050907-2.html#c