the citizen-viewer

So the Associated Press has dug up tapes in which Bush is told, the day before Katrina struck New Orleans, that there was a real chance the levees could fail. FEMA director Michael Brown and others, says the AP, "warned that the storm could breach levees, endanger lives in the New Orleans Superdome and overwhelm rescuers." This tape was provided to Congress some time ago, but didn't get much notice.

On September 1, Bush told the citizen-viewers (through Diane Sawyer), "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." The levees were rated only for a Category 3 hurricane. The New Orleans Times-Picayune had several years earlier laid out in excruciating detail what would happen if a stronger storm hit. FEMA had played out scenarios in which the levees broke. And now we find out that Brownie told him directly, as the storm bore down.

The NYT draws narrow parameters around the story, focusing on a transcript of an August 29 videoconference in which Michael "Brownie" Brown says that Bush was asking about reports that the levees had been breached, and saying that the transcript "offers new details but does not significantly alter the picture."

Picture, picture. You know what pictures remind me of? That's right, frames. In this frame, we look at whether the governmental response to the emergency was hampered by a lack of understanding of the catastrophe, and decide that it was not.

However, that is not the only frame available. The NYT could also have framed it these ways: Was Bush's response to the storm appropriate to what we now know that he knew at the time? Did he adequately make use of his powers as president? Was he telling us the truth about what he knew, or covering up? Any of these would be a nice things for the citizen-viewers to know.

In fairness, it is possible that the Times is convinced that Bush's statement to Sawyer was in the context of the brief period after it was known that Katrina was passing to the east of the city, but before it was known (to non-specialists) that this course would drive Lake Ponchartrain's waters toward the levees. Or that the warnings he was given on August 28 were somehow not specific enough, or contradicted by other seemingly reliable information. However, if either or both are the case it should be in the article.

The Times mentions only in passing the core of the story: In the August 28 videotape, Brown says Bush was told beforehand about the potential for a catastrophe, and apparently Bush did little to ensure that federal resources were ready, and later said that he didn't think anybody foresaw the breaching of the levees.

The Times also doesn't mention that Bush later told us that he did not know (after the Times-Picayune had already reported it online and Brownie had told him) that the levees had been breached at all.

MoveOn and the Dems are pushing it hard, and that means we can already see the next frame getting painted up in gold: "Critics attack White House with any weapon that comes to hand."