Dodging Bullets
First Secretary Michael Chertoff said it:
I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, ‘New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'”
Then Gen. Richard Myers said it:
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.
Now the president is saying it (original link, no longer active – http://archive.thinkprogress.org/politics/2005/09/12/1764/bush-relaxation/):
What I was referring to is this: When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, Whew. There was a sense of relaxation. And that’s what I was referring to.
And I myself thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people probably over the airwaves say, The bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.
The trouble is, the only media source that said “Dodged a Bullet” was the ultra-conservative mini-paper, WorldNetDaily. If that’s where the president gets all his news, we’re in trouble.
And all of this begs the question… why is the President getting his information from the newspapers in the first place? Shouldn’t he be talking to weather services and officials on the ground in New Orleans? Like the Army Corps of Engineers; the guys who are actually standing there looking at the levees?
All the mainstream newspapers said this: