Revisionist history in the wake of Katrina

I am really starting to get tired of the Republicans reflexively protecting the Bush administration and blaming the mess in New Orleans on Louisiana's Democratic governor and the mayor of New Orleans. It was absolutely criminal that there was not resources staged and in place ahead of the landfall of this hurricane.

As an amateur meteorologist (a pretty good one, I might add), I know that by Sunday morning this is what the National Hurricane Center was saying about Katrina:

THE AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTERS JUST MEASURED A 166 KT FLIGHT LEVEL WIND IN THE NORTHEAST EYEWALL...WHICH REQUIRES AN ADDITIONAL UPWARD ADJUSTMENT OF THE CURRENT INTENSITY TO 150 KT (175 MPH). A DROP IN THE EYE GAVE A CENTRAL PRESSURE OF 907 MB. KATRINA IS COMPARABLE IN INTENSITY TO HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969...ONLY LARGER.

Now, what part of comparable in intensity, only larger, than the legendary Camille, and
headed right for New Orleans, was not understood in Washington? You can blame the looters and the poor people left behind, but the fact of the matter is on Sunday morning it was looking like New Orleans was about to be wiped off the face of the planet!

Not to mention that the first NHC forecast putting the hurricane in the vicinity of
New Orleans came out Friday afternoon. The Bush administration should have been
preparing, staging resources, making plans for what to do after a Category 5
hurricane made landfall in a major U.S. city with 100,000 people (based on
the mayor's own estimate of an 80% evacuation rate) still in it. And when
the hurricane weakened to a Category 4 and veered east at the last
moment to miss New Orleans, the Bush administration should have been able to breathe
a sigh of relief knowing that they had more than enough resources in place to deal with
flooding in the storm's wake. Because remember, a Cat 5 storm would have put the whole city under water from a massive storm surge.

Instead it took them the better part of a week to respond. Why weren't National Guard troops called up and ready to go? You have a potential catastrophe coming, why don't you prepare?

I think conservatives have started to become so desperate to protect the President
in the face of rapidly falling poll numbers that they have lost all sense of objective reality.