White House knew of levee breach prior to announcing NOLA had "dodged a bullet"

And another administration talking point dies a gruesome death. But once again the question is raised-- lying, incompetent, or both?

Melancon said that at 10:30 p.m. Washington time on Monday, Aug. 29, the night the storm hit, the Homeland Security Department sent a message to the White House Situation Room reporting "a quarter-mile breach in the levee near the 17th Street Canal about 200 yards from Lake Pontchartrain allowing water to flow into the city.''

In a 23-page memo in December to members of a House committee investigating the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, Melancon said, "It is possible that the decision- makers in the White House and the Department of Homeland Security ignored or did not appreciate the significance of these Monday warnings, thereby delaying the urgently needed federal response.''

Bush, while touring the storm's devastation in Biloxi, Mississippi, on Sept. 2, said the levees were breached Aug. 30. "The levees broke on Tuesday in New Orleans,'' Bush said. Ten days later Bush, in New Orleans, said reports "over the airways'' led him to believe that the hurricane hadn't damaged the levees.

My money is still on 'both.'