"Was it when he said that he didn't "think anybody expected" the New Orleans levees to give way, though that very possibility had been forecast for years?"
I truly do hate this argument. The is a paper floating around somewhere for every potential disaster that could happen. Comet hitting earth, huge quakes in California, earth's magnetic field's reversing. So what? Should everyone move out of California? Guess what? Nature is random, anything can happen anywhere. How many storms have been touted at "The Storm of the Century" by the media...only to fizzle out or have a much smaller impact than expected. Even during Katrina, initial reaction was a bullet was dodged. Then the flooding began.
I am going to go write a white paper on a Martian invasion so I can be interviewed on CNN when it happens. But I need to remember to add a line about how it would be Bush's fault.
Please be sure to include in your paper that Ray Nagin will be leading a convoy of school buses to evacuate people in the line of fire of martian death ray guns.