The Daily Howler - 09/02/05

A BREAK IN THE ACTION! We’ll delay our current series while we wait for help to arrive: // link // print // previous // next //

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2005

A BREAK IN THE ACTION: Yes, there’s a difference between “breaching” and overtopping,” so Bush’s Thursday morning statement to Diane Sawyer wasn’t necessarily as dim as it looked. We agree with Matt Yglesias’ assessment:

YGLESIAS: Apparently, the president of the United States doesn’t “think anyone anticipated the breaching of the levees.” That's false, of course, but the tragic reality is that none of the relevant policymakers do seem to have anticipated this. And that's insane.

This morning’s Times provides some context. And of course, the inevitable failure-to-question: When Bush made his statement to Sawyer, she simply moved ahead to the next question (a pointless question about the ethics of looting). She didn’t ask him what he meant when he said that no one “anticipated the breaching.” Obviously, many people had anticipated such a disaster over the years. But when our potentially clueless president seemed to say something different, our plainly clueless millionaire anchor simply moved on without comment.