All national emergencies are, by definition, incidents of national significance according to the 2005 national response plan. Thus the claim that, before Brown and FEMA were free to act it was necessary for Chertoff to declare Katrina an "incident of national significance" days after Bush declared it to be a national emergency and major disaster is false. A feeble effort to shift the blame.

Knight Ridder made a mistake (no one is perfect).

The claim is spreading throught the internet like avian flu. Outbreaks here here here and here.

Note the irony of correcting claims in TPMcafe by linking to TPM.

update: See post below. Digby is earning a salary he isn't getting by typing from the pdf of the report from the congressional research service to Rep John Conyers.
I notice a passage relevant to this post

* All necessary conditions for federal relief were met on August 28. Pursuant to Section 502 of the Stafford Act, "[t]he declaration of an emergency by the President makes Federal emergency assistance available," and the President made such a declaration on August 28. The public record indicates that severa additional days passed before such assistance was actually made available to the State;

Note well before Chertoff's finding that Katrina was an "incident of national significance."