Bush administration DNA found all over the crime scene

UPDATE: Okay, hit the pause button -- CNN's Anderson Cooper just had a segment on about the DHS. The DHS today has issued a clarification that Chertoff signed an "incident of national significance" declaration before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. [Sorry. Transcripts not up yet.] Interestingly, I couldn't find anything about this on the DHS website. One would think that a declaration of an incident of national significance would be officially date- and time-stamped somewhere in some government office. Oh well.

I guess this means one of two things: Either the federal/DHS response to Katrina is about as good as it gets or _____________. I'll let you choose the alternative.
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Finally. Finally. More information is coming out about what the Chertoff-headed Department of Homeland Security could and should have been doing even before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Gulf states.

Read the story here: "The Smoking Gun: Memo Shows Chertoff Didn't Act For 36 Hours Even With Authority To Go Around State Officials," at The Left Coaster.

Now, I'm no authority on the organizational and authorizing minutiae of the DHS, but the lack of an up-front, first-line presence of DHS people in Katrina preparedness and response has baffled me since early on.

And you just know that Bush's announcement that he "takes responsibility" means his administration's bureaucratic DNA is splattered all over the crime scene and the lab results are due momentarily.