Pickin' and a grinnin'

On Tuesday, the President was busy strumming guitar at a photo op while residents of one of the nation's major cities fought for their lives.

The Times- Picayune accurately predicted that money diverted to the war in Iraq could have been spent to strengthen levees and other protective measures for the Mississippi delta communities, including New Orleans.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA [the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project], spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

So in the modern version, does Nero play guitar?