Homeland [In]Security on 'Meet the Press'

Here's an interesting transcript from this Sunday's Meet the Press with 'guest star' Michael Chertoff, head of Homeland [so-called] Security. The exchange was amazing with a completely unapologetic Secretary and a resolute Tim Russert who basically [and rightfully] tore him up:

When cornered, Chertoff said:

There are some things that actually worked very well. There are some things that didn't.

That's accountability for you. A lot of comfort to all those people down there, no doubt!

And the following shows how the head of 'Homeland Security' keeps himself informed:

What I said is in this storm, what happened is the storm passed and passed without the levees breaking on Monday. Tuesday morning, I opened newspapers and saw headlines that said "New Orleans Dodged The Bullet," which surprised people.

And now this shows the line of defense soon that you are soon going to hear from the Bush administration:

TIM RUSSERT : If you knew a hurricane 3 storm was coming, why weren't buses, trains, planes, cruise ships, trucks provided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday to evacuate people before the storm?

SEC'Y CHERTOFF: Tim, the way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials. The federal government comes in and supports those officials. That's why Mike Brown got on TV on Saturday and he told people to start to get out of there.