KATRINA

Breach of Trust First, the Bush administration -- with Michael Brown, former horse association chairman, at the helm of FEMA -- badly mismanaged the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Now, the Bush administration is blocking efforts by Congress to figure out exactly what went wrong. According to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) -- someone whom the administration "can't stop gushing over" -- the White House "is dodging questions about Hurricane Katrina response and has instructed other agencies to join it in fending off investigators." Lieberman said yesterday that the Department of Homeland Security "has engaged in a conscious strategy of slow-walking our investigation in the hope that we would run out of time to follow the investigation's natural progression to where it leads." White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says, "We are working with [Congress] in a cooperative way and we will continue to do so." Meanwhile, the White House has "declined requests to provide testimony by Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff; Mr. Card's deputy, Joe Hagin; Frances Fragos Townsend, the domestic security adviser; and her deputy, Ken Rapuano." Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said of the White House refusals: "I completely disagree with that practice."

BROWN WAS PAID TO COOPERATE WITH INVESIGATION, NOW REFUSES: After Brown was forced to resign after the Katrina debacle, he retained his full salary for weeks, working as "a consultant." According to FEMA spokesperson Nicol Andrews, Brown was retained so he could fully cooperate with investigators. Andrews said Brown "works from home, where he is 'pulling all the documentation together' to aid in the investigations into the government's response to Katrina." Brown has cashed his checks but "refused to answer even the simplest questions" related to the investigation.

THE BREACH OF THE LEVEES WERE ANTICIPATED: After Katrina devestated the Gulf Coast, President Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Actually, people did. The Department of Homeland Security delievered a report to the White House situation room "at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit [that] said, 'Any storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching.'" Other documents show that the weekend before the storm hit, "Homeland Security Department officials predicted that its impact would be worse than a doomsday-like emergency planning exercise conducted in Louisiana in July 2004."

WHITE HOUSE CLINGS TO 'DODGED A BULLET' MYTH: Defending Bush's comments, McClellan said yesterday, "As the President said, what he was referring to was that there was a sense by many, once the hurricane hit and had passed, that the worst-case scenario did not happen. There were numerous media reports saying that New Orleans had dodged the bullet." That's not what media reports were saying after the storm hit. On Tuesday, August 30 -- the day after the storm hit -- the New Orleans Times-Picayune led with a banner headline reading, "CATASTROPHIC: Storm Surge Swamps 9th Ward, St. Bernard; Lakeview Levee Breach Threatens to Inundate City."Â? Other newspapers around the country had the same message. The Washington Post: "Storm Thrashes Gulf Coast." The Washington Times: "Katrina Pounds Gulf Coast, Big Easy Flooded." The New York Times: "Hurricane Slams Into Gulf Coast, Dozens Dead." See more newspaper headlines from that day at the Newseum.