King George and the New Orleans Levees

Maybe he was just having a Homer Simpson moment, but when King George famously stated last September 1 regarding Hurricane Katrina that

I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees

it was after he had been personally briefed by federal disaster officials in what the Associated Press calls "dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms" that that very thing could happen.

The AP has unearthed a videotape of the briefing, during which the president did not ask a single question despite the enormity of the disaster in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. Perhaps he was upset about having to cut short his month-long vacation.

(Warning: The video is prefaced by an unfortunate Microsoft Office ad that starts: "10 a.m.: Out of the office, out of the loop." Ignore it.)