Dodging bullets
AMERICAblog says what I wanted to after watching this on CSPAN-2:
GEN MYERS: The headline, of course, in most of the country's papers on Tuesday were "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, and said we don't know what we're going to be asked for yet. The levees and the flood walls had just broken. And we know some of what's going to be asked, because we'd already had some requests for assistance, but there's probably going to be more.
Where'd he get that idea? Probably not from reading any papers, even if that is where the head of our military gets his news (which would be damned crazy). No, he probably heard it from his pal Michael Chertoff:
"I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet."
Quick rule of thumb in Washington - if one person says some inane thing, that's OK, most of these guys are crazy anyway. But if two people repeat an outright fabrication, that means someone's probably distributed it as a talking point. Who makes these talking points up? Why would they ever think they could get anything so blatantly false as this past a reporter? Oh, yeah.
GEN MYERS: The headline, of course, in most of the country's papers on Tuesday were "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, and said we don't know what we're going to be asked for yet. The levees and the flood walls had just broken. And we know some of what's going to be asked, because we'd already had some requests for assistance, but there's probably going to be more.
Where'd he get that idea? Probably not from reading any papers, even if that is where the head of our military gets his news (which would be damned crazy). No, he probably heard it from his pal Michael Chertoff:
"I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet."
Quick rule of thumb in Washington - if one person says some inane thing, that's OK, most of these guys are crazy anyway. But if two people repeat an outright fabrication, that means someone's probably distributed it as a talking point. Who makes these talking points up? Why would they ever think they could get anything so blatantly false as this past a reporter? Oh, yeah.
posted by onlooker at 1:13 AM
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