Feeding frenzy over at the ChicagoTribune blog

[apnu]

(edited for typo'd subject)

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/03/bushs_katrina_p.html

The article is entitled "Bush's Katrina problem just got bigger"

but check the responses out.... From Bruce, resident dittohead apparently:

Even by left-wing standards, the above is pretty feeble intellectually. Anyone who gets past the predictable leftist spin of the above article, and actually bothers to read what was said, can note that Mr. Mayfield is talking NOT of a BREACH (break) of the levees but of storm water pouring OVER ("topped") intact levees. These are two different things--thus, from what is quoted above, there is no contradiction. A student in one of my classes would get an "F" for thinking (or pretending to think) that the two are the same. But none of my students are reporters.
Posted by: Bruce | Mar 2, 2006 12:09:33 AM

(obvious flame bait and may took it hook, line, and sinker)

And here are some fun responses:

To Bruce: You're splitting hairs. If a levee is topped, it quickly degrades as the water finds weaknesses and causes it to erode. And even if it isn't breached, where do you think the water goes after it flows over the top of the levees? Into the city, of course. I think even an elementary school child could understand this.
Posted by: Tom | Mar 2, 2006 7:26:48 AM

In response to Bruce above, why is any common sense attack on Bush logic always "from the left"? Why do "defenders of the right" refuse to accept facts and seem to just want to mire the political world in confusions of language? The whole point of Maysfield's assertation was that the levees were a very grave concern. Whether they were topped or breached is not the point. The effect is, and was, the same. The ignorance of that fact (and other facts) is what makes Bush's cronyist government dangerous not only to other countries but to our own, as well.
Posted by: Mike | Mar 2, 2006 7:51:38 AM

Bruce,
Nice work proving the "leftist spin" to be true. New Orleans lies within a bowl. Overtopping or breaching of the levees would have the same effect, the only difference being how many weeks it would take to repair a breached levee. Water would fill up the city in either case, and would take a week or so to pump out. But I'd love to see Bush try that defense. "Oh, we didn't think they'd be breached. But we knew they could be overtopped. Therefore we did nothing about the inevitable consequences of the levees being overtopped." Yeah, that'll restore public confidence.
Posted by: Elrod | Mar 2, 2006 7:53:49 AM

This only confirms the suspicions of anyone that has been a spectator of this, that we have a presidency that is willing to throw away people and not take responsibility for their actions. In a comment earlier posted I see that the usual methodology of the "right-winged" has been employed, focus on the minutia and disregard the overall picture. In this case, whether the levees were broken or were topped is not the issue. The issue is that our people were aware of the possibility of flooding at a federal level, and nothing was done about it. That flooding was probable, and that there was a sense that this was a huge undertaking was known prior to land fall is the true issue.
Posted by: Michael | Mar 2, 2006 7:54:12 AM

There are differences between 'breaching' and 'topping' but that would be a distinction lost on someone in the ninth ward, floating down the highway, clinging to a mattress. If I understand this right, a hurricane hit New Orleans and huge swaths of homes were obliterated by masses of water. Whether this water topped the levee, breached the levee or came up through the drains, the homes are still gone and the governments involved (local, state and federal) failed in their basic functions.
Posted by: Eddie O'Donnell | Mar 2, 2006 7:54:31 AM

A true gem here:

Bruce is entirely right. The president said "breach", and not "topped", because he realized that being flooded up to your eyeballs by breach is far worse than being flooded up to your eyeballs by topping. The president is nothing if not a skilled wordsmith with a fine appreciation for subtle differences in meaning. We should all support the president in the same way that we all supported Clinton when he pointed out the subtle and technically correct distinction that "sexual relations" means "intercourse", and thus he did not lie, either. We should hold our politicians to technical legal definitions, and not try to interpret that they mean what they say.
Posted by: Jake | Mar 2, 2006 7:59:58 AM

To say, in the face of the video-conference evidence, that Bush was uninformed about the possible breach of the New Orleans levy because an official said "topped" and not "breached" is absurd. The official's point is that the levies could very well FAIL--whether by breach or by topping. The point of a levy is to keep water from invading a space. It hardly seems to matter how the failure is constituted, particularly if we are talking about Bush's fore-knowledge of such an event.

And how do you account for the other manifest evidence that Bush simply didn't care how bad the storm could be? After this conference, which I am sure you will agree from a non-partisan perspective intimates that Katrina will be deastating, he " a political swing through California and Arizona" rather than make any attempt to prepare for the disaster.

PS--I pity your students. If you are as inchoate and simple-minded in the classroom as you are on a message board, I think we have found an explanation for the state of American education.
Posted by: Timothy Moore | Mar 2, 2006 8:06:22 AM

Takin' Burce to task here:

I expect the NeoCons to come running, ancient book of fairy tales in hand, to try and do more spinning in a pathetic attempt at damage control for yet more exposure of what an incompetent corrupt criminal liar not only W is but nearly everybody in Washington D.C. in public office. Let's just look at the bare hard facts first.

1.) Regardless of topped or breached the levies were labelled "grave concern" and then left alone to be totally forgotten and ignored. No matter how you try to interpret what was being said and spin the English language it was regardless known the levies were a major concern in conjuction with Brown's concerns of flooding. Maybe they were just concerned about flooding because they were thirsty and wanted a glass of water?

2.) Once again in time of national tragedy W abandoned every single American that was not greeting him with a signed check sporting 6 digits or more. Just as he sat in the classroom on 9/11 wondering how to be a leader and what a leader would do, he sat on his ranch in Texas yet again on yet another vacation while the Gulfcoast was threatened and devastated. Then, he took a tour for only political motives again ignoring a hard and difficult reality that a real leader would and should have dealt with. Perhaps it was because the poor were mostly threatened, or maybe they were black or both but regardless Bush abandoned every single one of them.

3.) First thing afterwards cronyism went to scapegoating as Brown was blamed for the whole fiasco. Finding it odd yet how everytime this regime fails miserably, which is often, it blames everybody else? This time however there is conclusive video evidence showing Bush did not give a #$%@ from the start and still does not; the exact opposite of the smear job they did on Brown right after Katrina. Seen the pictures of the 9th ward just off from the recently ended party in the French District? Nothing has been done for them, the poor and the minorities but hot damn Bush and his brilliant blind followers were quick to make sure Bush came out looking OK and still make that fight while people remain in complete loss and the debris and remains still lay where they were tossed. No National Guard to help as they are all off dying for nothing in Iraq. Bush has left piles of manure everywhere he has shared his failure with America, this time however he has been caught red handed lying and passing the buck to cover his own tremendous ongoing failures.

Anybody that cannot see these simplistic patterns and trends would not only get an "F" for not teaching open full thinking and pattern recognition, but they should go back to elementary school themselves.
Posted by: American Patriot | Mar 2, 2006 8:13:19 AM

And finally, my personal favoriate:

Attn; Bruce, speaking of "F" what do you think happens when you run water over an earthen wall? Did the word erosion ever enter your grade school education? You never played at the beach or in the mud? These are observable phenomena. If you can't see, learn and remember then you are doomed to a diet of Kool-Ade. Soory man, what a weak apology, where is your outrage?
Posted by: pj5555 | Mar 2, 2006 8:16:42 AM