Feds "fooled" by rosy Katrina headlines

I'm actually re-linking to a Wonkette post from juyst yesterday. Department of Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff tried to use this exact same line to fool the press over the weekend: the government was lulled into inaction by a lying (and of course 'liberal') media that claimed New Orleans has "dodged a bullet." Now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dick Myers, is repeating it. The remarkable thing about it is that it's utterly, demonstrably false.

The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday — “New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,” or words to that effect. At that time, when those words were in our minds, we started working issues before we were asked, and on Tuesday, at the direction of the secretary and the deputy secretary, we went to each of the services. I called each of the chiefs of the services. One-by-one I called them and said, we don’t know what we will be asked for yet. The levees and the floodwalls had just broken and we know some of what will be asked because we had some requests for assistance already. There is probably going to be more.

They've even got their stories straight. Talk about organizational skills. Here's a sampling of actual headlines from last Tuesday:

- Engulfed Coast
- Killer Katrina
- A Grievous Blow
- Katrina Chaos
- Deadly Impact
- Everything is Flooded
- Millions Stranded
- Katrina Ravages South
- Devastated
- Devastating Hit
- Devastation
- Catastrophic