Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding?

Factcheck.org looks at the charges raised against Bush regarding slashing of funding for flood control, and verifies their accuracy.

In addition to verifying the accusations from people such as Sidney Blumenthal reductions in funding for flood control, they document many of the complaints from local officials that funding for hurricane protection projects were inadequate. In attempting to be balanced they do note that even if the funding was not cut it might not have been possible to stop the flooding. This would leave Bush with a pretty weak defense after having cut funding. It also leaves open the question why, if the levies (with or without additional funding) were not adequate to prevent this degree of flooding, they were not better prepared to start rescue efforts more rapidly. I heard predictions of the flooding which occurred several days earlier, including on NPR’S Morning Edition. If I was aware of this danger, the federal government certainly should have been aware of the risk and should have been better prepared to handle the aftermath.

(See The Democratic Daily for many other posts on Katrina as well as discussion).