I think that if you go back and read my posts, you will be hard pressed to find me pointing a finger at the Corps. I simply don't know enough facts to make that call. However, as noted above in Post 79, the Corps has already 'admitted to its blunders in the design of storm walls and earthen levees that were supposed to protect the New Orleans area.' I'm not sure what needs to be said after they came out with that statement. As for your comment that 'the politicians found a way to keep themselves on the public dole while keeping the Corps on the hook for responsibility of the levees' (paraphrasing), what exactly are you saying? That the Corps got taken to the cleaners? Someone falsified technical documents after the fact? Or are you saying that the Corps did an inadequate job of properly specifying what they were and were not responsible for and the State of Louisiana exploited that perhaps because all that was available were 'unwritten agreements' covering off some of the basic understandings as to who was responsible for what? If the latter, one has a hard time having sympathy for the Corps - with a group like this and the long history of their experience, the one thing they should have known something about was how to properly establish the Scope of Work and Terms of Reference.
Lousyana established a commission whose sole responsibility was the maintenance of the levees. The way this commission was structured, they could make a show of requesting maintenance or requesting upgrades and improvements, but leaving the responsibility for it all in the hands of the Corps. That includes often rejecting counterproposals the Corps made in response to the commission's request. IOW, the commission put its show on for the voters, pretending to actually be proactive on the levees. In typical fashion, they would usually demand something stupid or unsound, then blame the Corps for not doing what they wanted. That's simply the politics of the area. The commission was simply there to make people believe that they were in charge of overseeing the levees, but the Corps was responsible for implementing the requests of the commission. It was a classic doublebind scenario.
As we have seen with the state government in Lousyana, everything that has happened in the state has been the fault of the Bush Administration and Blanco, et al, hold themselves completely blameless. A search of articles from the Times-Picayune going back to the 60s, will demonstrate the concern that was routinely being expressed over the status of the levees and the lack of response by anyone to correct the problems.
We can talk about crappy designs, etc., but by doing so, we are ignoring the fact that these levees were designed and built a very long time ago in accordance with the engineering standards of the day. Unless I miss my guess, standards and building materials have improved substantially since then, otherwise we would still be using the exact same building standards and materials today. Blaming the Corps for the lack of maintenance on levees as old as those (due to the Levee Commission obstructing it) is disingenuous.
By the way, not all of my comments are about you. "Pointing the fickle finger of fate" was directed at a host of MSM articles trying to shift the blame for the levees breaching to the Corps as opposed to blaming those who got to be on the commission, but prevented the Corps from doing what needed to be done to maintain the levees. They wanted the glory, they just don't want the responsibility. Typical for politicians in general.