Blaming Bush for Hurricane Katrina - II

Zach Corey, who blamed George Bush for the damage that Hurricane Katrina caused, relied heavily on an article by Sidney Blumenthal.

Via Sykes Writes, an analysis, by Stephen Spruiell, of the fallacies and errors in the Blumenthal article. Quoting a post on RedState.org, the author asks:

Was it rational and defensible to shift funding from any source toward defense- and war-related activities in the aftermath of 9/11? Of course. Did that shift leave the levees unready to handle Katrina’s deadly burden? No. The levees were inherently unready: even at maximum proposed funding, their design was only for a Cat3 storm, not the Cat4/5 that Katrina was. It is true that in 2004, proposals were floated to upgrade to a Cat4/5-capable levee system; it is also true that even in an ideal situation, the studies — not the construction! — necessary to assess what that would entail would not be finished before 2008.

Blumenthal goes on the blame Bush policies that, according to him, allowed wetlands to be turned over to developers (read: evil capitalists) which reduced wetland acreage. But when the issue isn’t Bush, even the mainstream media know better than this. According to MSNBC technology correspondent Bob Sullivan:

Hurricanes quickly lose force when they hit land, but New Orleans is now vulnerable to violent storms because the land around it has been rapidly disappearing. Today, New Orleans is almost completely exposed to the Gulf of Mexico, said Val Marmillion, a consultant for the America’s Wetland group, which is lobbying for the Louisiana coast area.

Several factors — most human-made — have contributed to the steady decline of the delta at the bottom of the Mississippi. But most of the erosion is blamed on the levees, which faithfully steer all the water from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. That prevents occasional flooding, keeping area residents above water most of the time. But one unforeseen consequence of the levees has been to cut off wetlands from their life force.

The regular floods served nature’s purpose by feeding the delta, bringing fresh water and sediment that served to sustain life and replenish the wetlands. Without the regular flooding, the wetlands naturally “compact.”

“Simply put, when the land does not have any nutrients and fresh water it dies,” Marmillion said.

Spruiell notes:

In other words, humans’ systematic efforts to control the Mississippi — not a Bush plot to give the wetlands to Halliburton — gradually wore down the wetlands.

One argument Corey failed to pick up from Blumenthal was the notion that global warming caused Katrina. According to Blumenthal:

At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes...

But, as we reported this morning, even the New York Times has debunked this notion, quoting top scientists.

If Blumenthal is so unreliable on this issue, anybody reading his anti-Bush screed should have questioned his other assertions too.