Via Howard Kurtz, I see that Fred Barnes needs a little fact-checking.

The second avoidable mistake [by Bush] involved the reluctance of Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco to declare a mandatory evacuation of the city. Federal emergency officials urged Nagin to evacuate the city before Katrina hit. Bush personally called the mayor on the morning of the hurricane to press him to require all residents to leave. However, the president did not go public with a plea for an immediate and full evacuation.

Just for kicks, let's set a stop watch. Go. And stop. OK, it took me 30 seconds, not hurrying, to locate this Katrina timeline.

The timeline shows that Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation at 9:30 AM CDT on Sunday. Katrina made landfall at 7:00 AM CDT on Monday.

In this particular temporal universe, that would be "before" Katrina hit.

A simple mistake, I'm sure. It's not like Barnes is a professional wanker or anything.