The audience's reactions were telling.When President Bush first appeared, he was hissed and booed. Not loudly, but distinctly. There's nothing like the accuracy of a focus group of 7,000 people.

Pollsters often use a dozen or 15 or so scientifically selected people, screened by questionnaires to represent a demographic cross-section of a community. In an important political race, there will be four focus groups: black males, white males, black females and white females.

They are brought into a room, led by the pollster or other trained person, who asks questions to probe attitudes. Those focus groups are blind in that they don't have an idea who is questioning them.

But at the New Orleans Arena this past Wednesday night, 7,000 people came to see director Spike Lee's vision of Katrina, the response and the future.  

The president does not come off well in Lee's extraordinarily good four-hour documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, that airs at 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday night on HBO. The documentary airs in its entirety at 7 p.m. Aug. 29 and will be repeated 20 times on various HBO channels.

Audiences are reminded that it took Bush 12 days to travel the streets of New Orleans. They also are reminded that immediately after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, President Johnson walked the streets by flashlight just days afterward.

The worst moment for Bush occurred in a sequence of events that flashed from death at the Convention Center and people pleading for help for three days to his saying, "I can't understand people's wanting help to arrive yesterday." That was hissed.

The documentary cut to a small child at the Convention Center, who asked, "What does he know? He could come and help." The audience applauded loudly.

They also laughed and applauded when the documentary showed the Royal Canadian Mounties arriving in Chalmette, having crossed the river by ferry boat to come to the aid of St. Bernard Parish, long before U.S. troops showed up. "The Canadian Mounties got it and not the U.S. Army?" said St. Bernard Parish President Junior Rodriguez, triggering laughter and applause.

Bush was shown saying, "Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job" on Friday, long after the rest of the nation realized Brown wasn't. The audience laughed again.

There were waves of laughter and applause when a Lower Ninth Ward resident characterized Bush as "the kind of guy who gives C-students the world over a bad name."

Against all this, you'd have to give Bush a medal for bravery if, indeed, he does come to New Orleans for the first anniversary observances of this seminal event that exposed American weaknesses to the world.

The reaction to Gov. Kathleen Blanco was neutral: She was neither applauded nor hissed. But overall, Lee portrayed her well, showing her fighting for additional housing aid and exploring her standing up to the president over the control of the Louisiana National Guard.

She is shown forcefully announcing that the National Guard troops had weapons loaded and ready to use them. "I suspect they will," she said, showing her anger at the looting.

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin was applauded lightly. He came off very well, especially when he called Air Force One "a pimpmobile." The audience roared with laughter when Nagin explained why he stayed in the president's onboard shower (a peak at the luxury bathroom is included) on the Friday after the storm, when Bush flew in for an airport conference with local officials. Luxuriating in his first hot bath in six days, Nagin said he thought, "There's no way I'm going to get out of this shower."

The mention of the U.S. Coast Guard, first helicopters on the scene, brought the loudest whistling and cheering. The audience applauded when historian Doug Brinkley talked about the locals, the state Wildlife and Fisheries agents and others who saved people from their rooftops and attics absent any other U.S. military help.

The audience also cheered and applauded during the segment discussing the state's efforts to secure some of the $5 billion in offshore oil royalties collected from production off Louisiana's coast.

If Louisiana seceded from the U.S. and claimed the money, "we'd be like Saudi Arabia," said New Orleans editor David Meeks, again triggering applause.

"Give us our god-- money," said radio talk show host Garland Robinette, a comment given much applause and cheering.
There was no doubt about the feelings of this New Orleans audience. They voted with their hands and their mouths. This is an important documentary, as Spike Lee is a very influential Hollywood director. The message will go around the world, first on HBO and later by DVD.