Katrina duplicity

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were oh-so-quick to criticize the President yesterday for having been warned about the potential for levess breaching a day earlier than previously assumed.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said it ''confirms what we have suspected all along,'' charging that Bush administration officials have ''systematically misled the American people.''

Reid and Pelosi have been conspicuously quiet today after another tape revealed that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco Babineaux, a Democrat, was misinforming FEMA and the federal government about the levee failure:

''We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees,'' Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29 -- the day the storm hit the Gulf coast.

''We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee,'' she said on a video of the day's disaster briefing that was obtained Thursday night by The Associated Press. ''I think we have not breached the levee at this time.''