Media Matters examines the facts surrounding each of these bogus Republican claims.
1. Bush: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”
2. Chertoff strained credulity in defense of Bush, claimed levee breaks and massive flooding came as a surprise — more than 12 hours after local media reported them
3. Brown: “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day”
4. Chertoff: “Apparently, some time on Wednesday, people started to go to the convention center spontaneously”
5. Chertoff pointed fingers: “New Orleans officials and the state officials … called for the Superdome to be the refuge of last resort”
6. Chertoff falsely minimized federal government’s role in Katrina response as subordinate to states
7. Wash. Post, Newsweek, Gingrich falsely claimed that Blanco did not declare a state of emergency
8. Gingrich falsely claimed that Nagin could “have kept water pumped out” of city had he ensured that pumps worked