But underneath this swamp of poisoned discourse lies a rational, clear binary statement: Either there has been a failure in our nations response to Hurricaine Katrina, or there has not been a failure.

I suggest that any rational person would agree that the above statement has to be evaluated in the afirmative case. We have a Drowned city of evidence, we have a hundred thousand data points crammed into temporary shelters around the south. We have one of our great historical and cultural meccas thouroughly destroyed. One of our largest cities wiped off the earth. This is a failure. And, I would argue: This is a failure on a national scale.

I disagree with this basic premise, but I'll go on from there to the levee issue.

Many of the levees and floodwalls in New Orleans were specified and built, long ago, to Category 3 or "Standard Project Hurricane" standards.

The maintenance projects were designed to maintain those levees and floodwalls to that same Category 3 standard. The "underfunded" projects are listed here.

Most of the major floodwall failures occurred in the Lake Pontchartrain, La., and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project, including the 17th Street breach and the Industrial Canal breach.

If every dollar the COE had requested had come through, you would have wound up with perfectly-maintained Category 3 levees. Note that the 17th Street parallel protection had been completed.

The detailed completion status of the projects appears on this glossary page (boldface mine):

PARALLEL PROTECTION – Hurricane protection works such as floodwalls along a canal, as opposed to structures at the canal's outlet. Parallel protection is used in New Orleans along three drainage canals leading to Lake Pontchartrain. Purpose: Protect from hurricane storm surge. Under construction: See next two items below. Completed: Floodwalls along London Avenue , 17th Street and Orleans Avenue canals.

FLOODPROOFING OF BRIDGES – Extension of floodwall across a bridge to connect with floodwall on the other side. Requires demolition of existing bridge and construction of an entirely new bridge, including pilings. Purpose: Eliminate weak link in hurricane protection and dispense with sandbags and keep the roadway open during storms. Under construction: Hammond Highway over 17th Street Canal in Metairie/New Orleans. Completed: eight bridges: Veterans Boulevard over 17th Street Canal in Metairie/New Orleans; and Gentilly Boulevard, Mirabeau Avenue, Filmore Avenue and Leon C. Simon Boulevard over London Avenue Canal, and Robert E. Lee Boulevard, Harrison Avenue and Filmore Avenue over Orleans Avenue Canal. Remaining to be built: Robert E. Lee Boulevard over London Avenue Canal .

FRONTING PROTECTION – Extension of floodwall across the front (outflow side) of a pumping station. A major feature is sluice, or vertical-lift, gates installed on the outflow pipes. Purpose: Protect pumping station from storm surge. Gates prevent backflow through the pumps, and thus back into neighborhoods, in case of breakdown. Completed: three stations: Pumping Station No. 6 on 17th Street Canal in Metairie/New Orleans, Pumping Station No. 4 on London Avenue Canal at Prentiss and Warrington streets in New Orleans and Orleans Marina Phase 5 Pumping Station at West End in New Orleans. Remaining to be built: Pumping Station No. 3 on Orleans Avenue Canal and Pumping Station No. 7 on London Avenue Canal.

Most of the New Orleans COE money was flowing to a project to rebuild a set of locks that most reviewers thought were unnecessary, budgeted at $15 million this year.

This Washington Post article discusses where the money was going, along with deflating a few other myths being spread around.

This blog post gives a few examples of the status of Corps of Engineering funding under Bill Clinton. No doubt similar articles are available for other presidents. The Corps has had a long reputation for inflated funding requests, fueled by eager Senators and Congressmen looking for construction money in their districts, and they are often first in line for presidential trimming.

Most people seem to forget that, a couple of weeks ago, the Corps of Engineers was viewed by most liberals as a gigantic, environment-wrecking pork repository, to be fought at every turn. The only exception were liberal (and conservative for that matter) politicians who steered millions of dollars of COE cash into their districts.

The sudden recent respect for the COE on the part of liberals and the media is similar to the great reconciliation of the Left and the CIA after the Plame affair.

Short version: The idea that a shortage of Federal funding during the Bush administration resulted in any infrastructure failure of New Orleans flood protection systems is a lie. I don't expect people to stop spreading it, but the fact that it's a lie is still worth pointing out.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, I don't expect the environmentalist blocking of Dutch-style floodgates to protect Lake Pontchartrain back in the 1970s to get any attention at all from anyone. Unlike most of the long-term "Category 5" projects being discussed, or studied to death, the gates would have been completed by now.

More along the same lines here.

Next?