Shortly after noon on Aug. 31, Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) delivered a
message that stunned aides to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D), who were
frantically managing the catastrophe that began two days earlier when Hurricane
Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

White House senior adviser Karl Rove wanted it conveyed that he
understood that Blanco was requesting that President Bush federalize the
evacuation of New Orleans. The governor should explore legal options to impose
martial law "or as close as we can get," Vitter quoted Rove as saying, according
to handwritten notes by Terry Ryder, Blanco's executive counsel.

Thus began what one aide called a "full-court press" to compel the
first-term governor to yield control of her state National Guard -- a legal,
political and personal campaign by White House staff that failed three days
later when Blanco rejected the administration's terms, 10 minutes before Bush
was to announce them in a Rose Garden news conference, the governor's aides
said...

A Blanco aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the people
around Bush were trying to maneuver the governor into an unnecessary change
intended to make Bush look decisive.

"It was an overwhelming natural disaster. The federal government has an
agency that exists for purposes of coming to the rescue of localities in a
natural disaster, and that organization did not live up to what it was designed
for or promised to," the aide said. Referring to Bush aides, he said, "It was
time to recover from the fiasco, and take a win wherever you could, legitimate
or not."...

Within 30 minutes of receiving Rove's message on Aug. 31, Ryder and Blanco
Chief of Staff Andrew Kopplin were briefed by Col. Jeff Smith, a senior state
emergency preparedness official, advising them of the National Response Plan and
Incident Command System, basic components of the Department of Homeland
Security's playbook that lay out the chain of emergency authority.

By 2:20 p.m., Blanco called Bush, saying she needed additional resources
but not federalization, according to Ryder's notes. Instead, she said an
emerging federal/state partnership was jelling and asked Bush instead to commit
to an arrival date for troops.

"We don't know necessarily what 'unified' command, or what do these words
mean," the Blanco aide said. "The governor thinks that by that time, the command
structure that is coming together will work."

The next day, on a Bush visit, administration officials ganged up on Blanco
out of the presence of staff members and tried to bully her into changing her
mind, they said. Blanco requested 24 hours.

Ryder's notes report that on the night of Sept. 1, Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven
Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, advised Blanco, as an aide put it,
"You don't want to do that. You lose control, and you don't get one more boot on
the ground."

Later, Blum told Ryder he came "under political duress" for his opinion and
used military slang to describe an out-of-control situation, according to
Ryder's notes.

At about the same time, Blanco communications director Bob Mann spoke to an
aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), who said Democrats were
eagerly "mobilizing big-time to push back on criticism of the state."

"Bush's numbers are low, they are getting pummeled by the media for their
inept response to Katrina and are actively working to make us the scapegoats,"
Mann wrote to Ryder. Mann said that Mike McCurry, President Bill Clinton's press
secretary, was predicting "a full-blown P.R. disaster-scandal" for Bush by the
weekend and that Clinton FEMA chief James Lee Witt was offering to help Blanco.
Witt was hired the next day.

With all that in the background, by the night of Sept. 2, relations between
the Bush and Blanco teams were tense. At 11:20 p.m., Blanco received a fax from
the White House asking that she sign a letter requesting a federal takeover.
Bush Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said the president planned a news
conference to announce the changes the next morning.

At 8:56 a.m., just before Bush stepped onto the White House lawn, Blanco
called Card and aides faxed a rejection letter.

The president did not mention the dispute with Blanco in his remarks, and
deployed troops using existing command structures.

Blanco aides remained convinced that the White House was trying to take
credit for a situation in New Orleans that had by then improved. In hindsight,
Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher said, the lesson to states is that they must
be ready to take care of themselves and "not rely on anyone else."