Another interesting article from The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes on the Iraq / al Qaeda connection—this time, on how the 911 Commission may have modified its narrative to gloss over a few inconvenient facts.  From “See No Evil, Hear No Evil”: Ahmed Hikmat Shakir is a shadowy figure who provided logistical assistance to one, maybe two, of the 9/11 hijackers. Years before, he had received a phone call from the

In a series of (unnecessarily belligerent) comments, lefty serial-agitator jukeboxgrad raised a number of questions—phrased, as is the wont of hyper-partisans like he, in a bizarre combination of accusation and heavily-linked assertion masquerading as settled fact—about the NOLA levee breaches. Now, I’ve never pretended to have all the answers about Katrina and its aftermath—in fact, one of the reasons I’ve been writing these posts investigating the combined response to the

Because this might help explain why.  Well, this and the fifth of Dickel he routinely pours into his Diet Pepsis. (h/t Rand Simburg)

Buried near the bottom of this Washington Post article is a very interesting political note that could, perhaps, throw into sharp relief much of the politicizing (and pushback) we’ve seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: “In 2006, if there isn’t some turn of events, Iraq combined with Katrina and the large budget deficits to follow will create an opportunity for non-incumbents to move in,” said James A. Thurber, a

For our convenience, the Moderate Voice’s Joe Gandelman has taken the time meta-analyze Katrina response—an exercise that, I’m sad to note, says more about Mr Gandelman than it does about the Katrina responders it purports to analyze.  From “Did George Bush Really ‘Blow It?’”: […] when [LA Senator Mary] Landrieu talked about blame [on CBS’s “Face the Nation”], she was responding to the full-court press by the White House in

So now I’m on a dedicated server—for only an additional $150 a month! Wow!  What a deal! 

Tammy the blind date:  “My God, Regis!  That was incredible!  Like, I think you changed my life, you know?  Never before have I been so thoroughly and vigorously — “Regis”:  “– Yeah, yeah, I get that all the time, honey.  Speaking of which, that ten spot on the dresser should be enough to get you home, right?  I’ve got oil-for-feed stuff I gotta deal with in the morning, and—well, I

For a while after the bombings in Britain, it looked like the dangerous multiculturalist mindset British elites have advocated for decades would be pushed aside for a strong sense of British nationalism.  But if this is any indication, Britain’s famed stiff upper lip is now all a-quiver, beaded with sweat at the prospect of offending its tormentors, who have gathered in its cities like tumors. Where have you gone, Maggie

Reviewing previous responses by the feds to natural disasters, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jack Kelly argues that FEMA’s response actually improved for Hurricane Katrina—which devastated an area larger than Kansas or Utah or Idaho or Minnesota (and as large as Great Britain): It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow. “Mr. Bush’s performance last week will rank as one

For a little over a week now, I’ve been stressing the need for honest analysis of the emergency management breakdown we witnessed in NOLA, arguing time and again that should we truly wish to address the systemic coordination problems between local, state, and federal governments with respect to emergency response, we need to be able to locate those problems, identify them by name, and correct them. …All of which seems