From ABC News: Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a local congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings — even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned. On Friday, Sept. 2 — five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents

Schumer:  “There are many other pasta dishes, each with its own distinct taste and quiet dignity.  And as you know, I respect every one of them.  Deeply.  But if we’re being candid, I think we can all agree that I am the most delicious—and the cheesiest—of all pasta dishes.  Am I not?”* *

**** update:  Patterico has more faith than I do.

From the Boston Globe: President Bush said Tuesday that “I take responsibility” for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government’s ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks. “To the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” Bush said. The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government’s ability

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!