Karl Rove can’t decide whether George W. Bush was a “great President, or the greatest,” to use Stephen Colbert’s satirical phrase. But according to “turd blossom”—one of the nicknames Bush assigned his senior advisor—the former President did a fine job reversing Bill Clinton gaffes of balancing budgets, paying down national debt and creating a prosperous economy.  

In Rove’s memoir, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, Bush made only one tiny mistake—invading Iraq on a false premise. But, heck, that was only because of faulty intelligence. And besides, it’s only cost the country 4000 lives and nearly a trillion dollars. In Rove’s view, the war is a minor stumble.

What about George Bush’s 9/11 reaction when he continued reading The Pet Goat (correct title, not “My Pet Goat” as frequently reported) to a second grade classroom after Andrew Card notified him that two airliners had crashed into the World Trade Center. Despite the panicked expression on the President’s face, Rove says Bush was simply trying to project a sense of calm. He didn’t want to cause a bunch of seven year old kids running from the room, screaming, “We’re all going to die.” 

And of course, there’s an explanation for President Bush’s slow response to Katrina and his infamous quote, “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie.” Rove writes that Bush’s praise of FEMA chief Michael Brown was based on information given him by others—people who apparently were ignorant of the disastrous failures of the federal government in providing assistance to New Orleans in the hours immediately following the hurricane. In Rove’s role as Bush apologist, he blames Louisiana Governor Katherine Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin for the rescue debacle. Indeed, Rove believes Democrats are to blame for everything that’s wrong with the country. However,  Turd Blossom’s account of what happened before and after Katrina contradicts reality—at least based on my investigation.

In 2006, a Dallas, Texas television production company contacted me about working on a Katrina documentary that was being developed as a full length movie. Although the project ultimately fell through because of lack of financing, I devoted a lot of unpaid hours to interviewing state officials, first responders and gathering additional background.

“If the levees had held, the big hurricane story of 2005 would have been Rita, not Katrina,” Governor Blanco told me in a lengthy interview. Although Katrina’s winds and high water caused incredible damage and resulted in hundreds of casualties in Louisiana and Mississippi, it was the breach of the levees that flooded the New Orleans area and took the heaviest toll in terms of deaths and proprety damage. Poor construction and maintenance of the levees was the fault of the U.S. Corp of Engineers, rather than state and local government. It was a problem that should have been corrected many years before Katrina. No single administration can be blamed.

Much was made about the delay of state and local officials in declaring mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, a delay that was influenced in large part by the timetable of Katrina’s projected landfall and its intensity. The U.S. Weather Service determined the near certainty of the hurricane’s landfall between 12:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning, August 29th. Within three hours, mandatory evacuation began and the Superdome was opened as a shelter of last resort. But for many people, especially those in the 9th Ward, they were either unable or refused to evacuate.

Though not widely reported, one factor in the decision of many folks to ignore mandatory evacuation was a false alarm the year before when Hurricane Ivan threatened New Orleans. Thousands of residents heeded the warning in September 2004. Then, Ivan took a sharp turn in the Gulf and made landfall in Alabama. It gave a lot of  people a false sense of security that the so-called “big one” would not hit New Orleans in their lifetime.

I also need to mention Turd Blossom’s claim in his book that Bush’s slow response to Governor Blanco’s request for U.S. military help in the aftermath of Katrina was a result of her reluctance to give the President’s needed authority to send troops. Actually, he already had the authority—an exception being provisions of a post Civil War statute known as Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the use of active military for law enforcement. Troops can be used for other purposes without the consent of the state. Months after the hurricane, Blanco was praised by fellow governors for upholding the Posse Comitatus law of separating state and federal powers.  

Anyway, Karl Rove’s memoir meets expectations. After all, he is the “boy genius,” as George W. sometimes called him, the turd blossom responsible for getting Bush elected. Rove is entitled to false memories. Otherwise, he would have to take responsibility for achievement.