BIG BULLSHITTER BLAMES BUSH

Having grown up in south Texas I've always taken notice of hurricanes and still do even though I now live on the other side of the world. So, I watched Katrina's progress from the time she was a tropical storm first threatening Florida. It really was quite a relief when Katrina struck Florida as only a category 1 storm.

Accuweather.com forecasters on Fox News predicted Katrina would track out into the Gulf of Mexico only briefly before she turned north, probably hitting the Florida panhandle or the Alabama coast. This was good news because the longer Katrina spent over the hot water of the Gulf, the stronger she'd likely be when she came ashore. But, as we all know, predicting hurricane tracks is not an exact science, so where she would actually make landfall on the Gulf coast was anyone's guess.

It was therefore something of a surprise to read the following in an open letter to the President from Michael Moore:

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

This brings up several obvious points. Moore's presence certainly explains Katrina's rapid weakening over Florida. I mean, the guy's gotta be the world's largest living wind-break.

I don't know where Moore got the news flash - not on Thursday, August 25, anyway – that Katrina was was going to hit New Orleans but it certainly wasn't from the National Hurricane Center. As far as I can tell, the NHC doesn't mention until the 26th that the New Orleans area would likely be hit. Perhaps, Tim "Fact-Check-Boy" Lambert, who's obsessive about accuracy, could check this out and get back to us, if he can tear himself away from fact-checking Mark Steyn's opinion pieces.

Moore also has a problem with the apparent shortage of National Guardsmen on the ground:

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

James S. Robbins at National Review says there is no shortage of forces:

So is the war in Iraq causing troop shortfalls for hurricane relief in New Orleans?

In a word, no.

A look at the numbers should dispel that notion. Take the Army for example. There are 1,012,000 soldiers on active duty, in the Reserves, or in the National Guard. Of them, 261,000 are deployed overseas in 120 countries. Iraq accounts for 103,000 soldiers, or 10.2 percent of the Army.

That’s all? Yes, 10.2 percent. That datum is significant in itself, a good one to keep handy the next time someone talks about how our forces are stretched too thin, our troops are at the breaking point, and so forth. If you add in Afghanistan (15,000) and the support troops in Kuwait (10,000) you still only have 12.6 percent.

So where are the rest? 751,000 (74.2 percent) are in the U.S. About half are active duty, and half Guard and Reserve. The Guard is the real issue of course — the Left wants you to believe that the country has been denuded of its citizen soldiers, and that Louisiana has suffered inordinately because Guardsmen and women who would have been available to be mobilized by the state to stop looting and aid in reconstruction are instead risking their lives in Iraq.

Not hardly. According to Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, 75 percent of the Army and Air National Guard are available nationwide. In addition, the federal government has agreed since the conflict in Iraq started not to mobilize more than 50 percent of Guard assets in any given state, in order to leave sufficient resources for governors to respond to emergencies.

Moore even attempts to use the tragedy to paint Bush a racist:

It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

The latest BEST OF THE WEB TODAY has this covered with census figures showing that, of the Louisiana parishes and Mississippi counties most affected by Katrina, only Orleans parish is majority black. It's obviously Bush's fault were not seeing anything of the whites whose lives have been devastated.

Gee, the essentials of Moore's letter are nothing more than the same old tired bullshit from the lying, hating fat fuck. It's hardly surprising then that Antony "Leftard" Loewenstein is all a-gush about Moore:

Moore is always worth a read as he's mastered the knack of making political dissent relevant, timely and populist...

The left still considers Moore relevant; no wonder they're irrelevant.

Update: Evil links to a handy-dandy who's to blame guide.

Update II: Those arriving via Tim Blair - thanks for the link, Tim - should click here if they want to be fully informed about the New Orleans genocide.