Bill Clinton faced impeachment over lying about a sexual affair. Unwise? Sleazy? Pathetic? Unethical and disturbing? Sure. I agree with Republican friends on this.

Yet, who can look at this timeline of actual events as they unfolded during and after Hurricane Katrina hit vs. where Bush adminstration officials could be found — and not walk away seeing them as criminals. Lazy, carefree criminals who fiddled like Nero while Rome burned.

Officials were begging for help even before the disaster struck and the Bush administration took no significant action for five days. From this timeline, it is clear that anything anyone in his cabinet who says otherwise is lying.

They didn’t know the levees might break — Lie.
They didn’t know how bad the storm would be — Lie.
The states didn’t ask for help — Lie.
They didn’t have enough on-the-ground information — Lie.
They’d never seen or done anything like this before (Hello Well-Coordinated East Asian Tsunami response) — Lie.
They didn’t realize the levees had broken — Lie.

At a minimum, Michael Chertoff and Donald Rumsfeld should be fired immediately. They failed to do fulfill the basics of their responsibilities for Homeland Security and Defense of our nation. Yet this timeline shows how deeply George W. Bush also turned his back on the people he is sworn to lead and protect.

Here’s an excerpt from Mon Aug 29 as rain poured into the Astrodome in New Orleans and the levees had begun to breach…

8PM CDT — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]

8PM CDT – GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]

LATE PM – BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS [Newsweek]

Please read Think Progress’ excellent work here. It cuts through all the crap in terms of who asked for what when and who knew what when…

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