The Game Behind the Blame: Or subtitle: Meanwhile, What's Uncle Karl Up to?

Dirty Tricks as Usual, or should we call it the Game behind the Blame:

Q Scott, it seems that Karl Rove has already made the assessment for the administration as to what went wrong with Katrina, because according to reports, he said in Aspen, at the Sportsmen's Annual Off the Record that the only mistake that we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government. If this is, indeed, true, what would have been done differently?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not sure that's an accurate account.

Q Well, there are reports that you guys are trying to blame it on the local government --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the report is put out by critics, so I'm just not going to --

Q `Well, what would have been done differently, then, if what Karl Rove is saying is true? If you would have taken over? The response was late, the federal government --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, one of the issues that the President talked about that needs to be looked at is in a case like this where you have a storm of this magnitude and scope, one like we've never seen before, then -- and the local and state first responders are essentially overwhelmed, then what do you do to address that issue? Does the federal government -- we need to look at the role of the federal government, specifically the military. We set up the Northern Command after September 11th -- that was the first time the military had set up a Northern Command here to cover America. They have commands all across the world. But he said the other day that we need to look at this issue. And the military brings with it the logistics and capabilities needed to move in quickly and address some of these issues. So that's one of the areas that needs to be looked at as we move forward, to apply the lessons from this response effort.

Q So was that the only mistake, or are there more mistakes --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's what the investigation will look into. They'll look at all these issues so that we can make sure we're better prepared in the future.

P.S. Let's not forget that October, rapidly approaching, is the month we were promised results on the Plame Leak investigation. If they weren't basing their opperations out of the Gulf Coast, shouldn't they be coming out soon?