Bush on Katrina: "Don't tell me the federal response was slow"

Okkkk......How about "criminally negligent?"  Can I tell you that?

In his final press conference of his abysmal presidency yesterday, Bush defended his Administration's response after Hurricane Katrina and claimed the reconstruction of New Orleans is moving right along.  Nothing to see here, folks!  Keep moving!

In actuality, click here to view very disturbing imagery of how funds to shore up New Orleans's levees were diverted for the War in Iraq; it's very troubling, but worth the look.  Firedoglake has linky goodness on all the warnings that Bush ignored in the years leading up to the predicted catastrophic hurricane and flood.  I also cannot let this final commentary slip by - Hurricane Katrina was a disastrous turning point in Bush's already horrible Presidency.  His criminal inaction in the immediate aftermath of the storm was made worse by his long-term abandonment of briefly lofty rhetoric on combatting the endemic poverty revealed by the storm, and by the ideological stonewalling of a GOP-controlled Congress to deny the necessary funds and proven disaster recovery programs for the Gulf Coast.

Personally, I'm most ticked off by Bush's contention that the reconstruction is moving quickly and has been fully funded.  The only time he even mentions poverty is when he's bloviating about free trade and its benefits for developing countries.   Never mind in his own backyard.

Given he'll have a lot more time starting next Wednesday for surfing the blogosphere (likely handle: PREZFAIL), I hope he'll consider this incomplete, mildly chronological laundry list of his major offenses in hampering a full and equitable recovery of the Gulf Coast, particularly for its lowest-income residents, who were hardest hit by the storm:

• Attempting to suspend federal law requiring prevailing labor wages be paid; he lost that one, thankfully;
• Using FEMA trailers to house evacuees instead of expanding proven emergency HUD-voucher programs; these 400 square foot trailers, due to corruption, contracting fraud and general operational incompetence, cost over $200,000 each in some case.  They also cost people their lives due to formaldehyde contamination, but really, how much is a poor person's life really worth, anyway?
• Greenlighting HUD's demolition of 4,500 units of deeply subsidized affordable housing, aided and abetted by corrupt agency executives, and racist, classist GOP leadership;
• Failing to regulate his "ownership society" so that as the housing market fell apart, the tax credits needed to rebuild affordable housing in the Gulf disappeared;
• Sanctioning the diversion of affordable housing funds for port expansion in Mississippi - this one's gone to court;
• Taking credit for the recovery at all, when non-profits, advocacy coalitions, 1m+ volunteers, philanthropies, businesses, foundations, labor organizations and community groups have stepped up to fill the government void that followed in the absolute absence of any leadership from Bush after the storm.

What, 6 bullets not enough for you?  No worries; long-time New Orleans civil rights attorney Bill Quigley's got "How to Destroy an African-American City" in 33 easy steps!

Is it Tuesday yet?