(8:00 pm) August 29, 2005: Louisiana Governor Asks President for ‘Everything You’ve Got’

Louisiana Governor Blanco calls President Bush this evening. Reportedly, she tells him, “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” Blanco later recalls that Bush was reassuring. However, the conversation is rather vague, according to later reports. Blanco does not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. “She wouldn’t know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys’ Choir,” says an official in Governor Blanco’s office (who wishes to remain anonymous). [Newsweek, 9/19/2005] Blanco will later acknowledge that she does not “give him a checklist or anything.” [Time, 9/11/2005] “Do we stop and think about it?” she will ask. “We just stop and think about help.” [New York Times, 9/11/2005] Blanco’s aides will contend that she should not have to provide a detailed list under the circumstances: “That’s like telling a drowning man that you are not going to help him until he asks for a life preserver.” [Time, 9/11/2005]