Blanco dotted her i's and crossed her t's...

Josh Marshall provides this link to a CRS report given to Rep. John Conyers answering the question, did Gov. Blanco do what she needed to do to get federal assistance?:

CONCLUSIONS

From the above review of the statutory authorities under the Stafford Act, the letters of Governor Blanco to President Bush requesting first a declaration of emergency and then a major disaster declaration in acticipation of the effects of Hurricane Katrina, as well as the President's responses to those requests in declaring a state of emergency with respect to Louisiana effective August 26,2005, and continuing, and declaring a major disaster with respect to Laouisiana effective August 28, 2005, and continuing, it would appear that the Governor did take the steps necessary to request emergency and major disaster declarations for the state of Louisiana in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. In response to the Governor's requests, it appears that the President did take the steps necessary to trigger the availability of Staffor Act emergency assistance and disaster assistance, by declaring first a state of emergency, and later a major disaster, and authorizing specific Stafford Act assistance to be make available to the State of Louisiana to respond to the effects of the Hurricane. We hope that this will be of assistance to you.

What a boring way of saying, yes, she did make the proper requests, and she did it before the storm hit. The feds' response was in the feds hands.

Maybe we see now why Bush is taking responsibility. Is he getting ready to clean house in DHS and FEMA? Fire up the grill. Looks like we'll have heaping helpings of Chertoff-kebobs real soon now.