This is surprising. I really expected the Army Corps to take the bullet on this one. They're not known for criticizing the Commander in Chief.

Mr Bush said on Wednesday that no one had anticipated the breach of the levees that protect New Orleans from flooding. But Lieutenant-General Carl Strock, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, said the military and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had ordered the evacuation of New Orleans precisely because the levees were not designed to withstand a category five hurricane.

Guess that's who Elisabeth Bumiller means by "others"

Democrats and Others Criticize White House's Response to Disaster

A political furor intensified on Thursday over President Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina as Democrats, local officials and members of an increasingly bewildered public accused the president of a slow response to the flood that has plunged New Orleans into chaos.

President Bush met with former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush Thursday in the Oval Office to discuss hurricane relief.

Mr. Bush, in a rare morning television interview, fought back.

"I hope people don't play politics during this period of time," Mr. Bush told Diane Sawyer of ABC's "Good Morning America" in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. "This is a natural disaster, the likes of which our country may have never seen before."

But the politics of natural disaster were close to the surface as Democrats said that the crisis had become a political catastrophe as daylong images on television showed refugees desperate for food and water in the richest nation on earth.

Not just Democrats. The public, too. The bewildered public. Poor confused things.

Way to not play politics during this period of time, Ms. Bumiller.