Not ready for Prime Time.
In an effort to sidestep his hypocrisy regarding taking some of the federal stimulus money while refusing other parts, Gov. Jindal (R LA) said today on Meet The Press that he would accept money to rebuild the levees in his state because the levees didn't hold up as they were designed to do by the federal government in the first place. But that is not true. The levees did hold up as they were designed. They just weren't designed to handle a storm the size of Katrina.
Here is what Gov. Jindal said:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
'Meet the Press' transcript for Feb. 22, 2009
GOV. JINDAL: Everybody knows the federal levees that were designed and built by the Corps didn't do what they were supposed to do in 2005. ...I will continue to work to make sure that the federal government repairs and builds the levees the way they should have been built in the first place, repairs our coast to prevent against future storms and also, by the way, helps to repair some of the damage that was caused by the breaking of those federal levees.
and again:
GOV. JINDAL: Federal levees didn't do what they were supposed to. Yeah, we want them to build properly.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...
New Orleans Levees Not Built for Worst Case EventsBrian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
September 2, 2005
Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the Corps, dismissed suggestions that recent federal funding decreases or delayed contracts had any impact on levee performance in the face of Katrina's overwhelming force.
Instead he pointed to a danger that many public officials had warned about for years: The system was never designed to withstand a storm of Katrina's strength.
"It was fully recognized by officials that we had Category Three [hurricane] level of protection," Strock said. "As projections of Category Four and Five were made, [officials] began plans to evacuate the city.
The reason that the levees didn't withstand the blow delivered by Hurricane Katrina is because Congress was not prepared to spend the money it would have taken to make the levees stronger. So the people of New Orleans, Louisiana, and United States paid the price when Hurricane Katrina slammed the southeast.
If Gov. Jindal expects to aim for the big time, he had better get his facts straight first.