Conservatives advancing dubious claim Bush urged New Orleans evacuation

Rove Magic at work.

An August 28 statement by Blanco made clear that President Bush called her just before the August 28 press conference at which the evacuation was announced, casting doubt on the claim that Bush's phone call was a decisive factor in the decision to evacuate. This timeline was later confirmed by White House press secretary Scott McClellan during the September 7 White House press briefing, when he reported that Bush had spoken to Blanco "around 9:00 a.m.," just minutes before the governor's 9:30 a.m. CT August 28 press conference began. The press conference opened with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin -- not Blanco, as Chavez and Murdock stated -- declaring the mandatory evacuation.

Additionally, Chavez conflated the governor's decision to declare a state of emergency in Louisiana with the decision to call for a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. As a ThinkProgress.org timeline makes clear, these were completely separate events: Blanco declared a state of emergency on August 26, two days before Bush's August 28 phone call and Nagin's August 28 call for mandatory evacuations. Moreover, it was Blanco who asked Bush on August 27 to declare a federal state of emergency in Louisiana, not the other way around, as Chavez suggested. The president declared a federal state of emergency in Louisiana later that day.

I have dealt with this in a LYING GOP email that is going around and will write more about that later.