Bush Bashing in NYT over pulling funding for levees in NO...

[FormerRepublican]

"The 17th Street levee that gave way and led to the flooding of New Orleans was part of an intricate, aging system of barriers and pumps that was so chronically underfinanced that senior regional officials of the Army Corps of Engineers complained about it publicly for years.

Often leading the chorus was Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager for the corps and a 30-year veteran of efforts to waterproof a city built on slowly sinking mud, surrounded by water and periodically a target of great storms.

Mr. Naomi grew particularly frustrated this year as the Gulf Coast braced for what forecasters said would be an intense hurricane season and a nearly simultaneous $71 million cut was announced in the New Orleans district budget to guard against such storms.

He called the cut drastic in an article in New Orleans CityBusiness.

In an interview last night, Mr. Naomi said the cuts had made it impossible to complete contracts for vital upgrades that were part of the long-term plan to renovate the system.

This week, amid news of the widening breach in the 17th Street Canal, he realized that the decadeslong string of near misses had ended.

"A breach under these conditions was ultimately not surprising," he said last night. "I had hoped that we had overdesigned it to a point that it would not fail. But you can overdesign only so much, and then a failure has to come."

No one expected that weak spot to be on a canal that, if anything, had received more attention and shoring up than many other spots in the region. It did not have broad berms, but it did have strong concrete walls.

Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded.""

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html

I'm glad to see the press FINALLY nailing Bush for his revolting policies. I can only hope and pray that more will do the same.

[darkism]

1. "Bush-bashing" is a RW term with a negative connotation.

I much prefer "placing the blame exactly where it belongs."

[Cha]

2. Thanks for the article.

What else is going to show up, through unexpected circimstances, that bush slashed funds for?

[Julius Civitatus]

3. Truth telling is no "Bush bashing"

NY Times is calling it like they see it. He's been incompetent, and it needs to be said!

What do you mean they are "Bush bashing"?

[FormerRepublican]

6. You misunderstand me.

Bush NEEDS to be bashed, IMO. The press has been far too easy on him. If anything, in addition to this justified criticism, I'd like to see some unjustified trashing of Der Fuehrer just to make up for 5 years of whitewash.

[tmooses]

4. Why couldn't the NY Times make the point he is incompetent before

the election? They hid the Plame affair before the election for what reason?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. $$$

nt