When I originally published material on this blog suggesting the Iraq war hurt the relief effort in New Orleans and the surrounding area, many people scoffed.

But a new AP article on CNN makes the idea a little harder to scoff at:

BAY ST. LOUIS, Mississippi (AP)—The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states’ initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.

One of those military officials is Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, who is chief of the National Guard Bureau. According to him, “arguably” an entire day or so of response time was lost due to the absense of these National Gaurdsmen.

Democrat Rep. Gene Taylor “told reporters the absence of the deployed Mississippi Guard units made it harder for local officials to coordinate their initial response.” And before you attack Taylor as some Bush-hating filfth-spewing traitor to America, remember this: Taylor’s home was completely washed away in the hurricane.

In other news: Colin Powell has admitted that his speech to the United Nations accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction was a “blot” on his record. The most interesting part the article is this:

Powell in the TV interview also disputed the Bush administration’s linking of Saddam’s regime with terrorists.

He said he had never seen a connection between Baghdad and the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. “I can’t think otherwise, because I’d never seen evidence to suggest there was one,” he said.

Bush must know something Powell doesn’t, I guess.

Speaking of which, the President’s job approval rating has slipped, for the first time, to below 40 percent.

And a new analysis by the Congressional Budget office indicates that even before you include the cost of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush will fail to keep his promise to cut the deficit in half by the time he leaves office.

The study predicts that the $331 billion budget deficit projected for the current budget year would rise to $370 billion by 2009, the year Bush has promised to cut the deficit to at least $260 billion. Bush promised to cut the deficit in half from a projection in February 2004 of a $521 billion deficit for 2009.

Instead of actually taking a little responsibility and maybe making an effort to not outspend every flippin’ president (Democrat or otherwise) since LBJ, the Bush administration has started playing the blame game:

In response, the White House asked for congressional action instead of rhetoric.

“Instead of complaining about the deficit, how about doing something about it?” said Bush spokesman Trent Duffy, noting that Spratt opposes Republican efforts to trim just $35 billion from federal entitlement programs over the next five years.

This is truly pathetic, coming from a spokesman of the President who has yet to veto a bill after nearly six years in office.

So-called conservatives [Two term Bush supporters] should hang their heads in shame. We do not have anything close to a conservative president in office; instead, we have a war president who throws money around like a Democrat.