Well, in my last post on this topic, “The Pitiful Press,” I commented on the fact that even normally reliable and stalwart media organizations were dissapointingly impulsive in their coverage of stories coming from Hurricane Katrina.

Almost from the first day the Hurricane hit, New Orlean Mayor, Ray Nagin, was predicting thousands and tens of thousands dead in the city. He said much more than that, as Breitbart.com reports:

On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: “We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten.”

Five days later, he told Oprah Winfrey that babies were being raped. On the same show, Mayor Ray Nagin warned: “They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.”

The ugliest reports _ children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement _ soon became a searing image of post-Katrina New Orleans.

The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were repeated by public officials. Many news organizations, including The Associated Press, carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements, and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution.

Here is what has actually been discovered to date by authorities:

But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact.

They have no official reports of rape and no eyewitnesses to sexual assault. The state Department of Health and Hospitals counted 10 dead at the Superdome and four at the convention center. Only two of those are believed to have been murdered.

One of those victims _ found at the Superdome _ appears to have been killed elsewhere before being brought to the stadium, said Bob Johannessen, the agency spokesman.

“It was a chaotic time for the city. Now that we’ve had a chance to reflect back on that situation, we’re able to say right now that things were not the way they appeared,” said police Capt. Marlon Defillo.

Sally Forman, a spokeswoman for Nagin, said the mayor was relying on others for his information about conditions at the evacuation sites. “He was listening to officials, trusting that information they were providing was accurate,” she said.

I think the last line from this article, a comment from Sally Forman regarding Mayor Nagin’s statements to the press, describes this mayor perfectly:

“The mayor was relying on others…”

Mayor Nagin was relying on others! And not just for information, but for leadership, for organization, for inspiration, and even for a sense of sanity.

Mayor Nagin was clueless.

Not to say that there is no blame elsewhere. There certainly is.

But Mayor Nagin is a mess. He is, in a nutshell, the Marian Barry of New Orleans. Hapless, corrupt, and incapable of real leadership.

Too bad most of the MSM still doesn’t get it.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

It amazes me how many people actually buy the argument that drug companies don’t really want to cure people. The argument goes like this:

Pharmaceutical companies could cure just about any illness, but they don’t want to, because there is more money in TREATING illnesses rather than CURING them.

That argument is so ridiculously shallow. The ones selling it are either trying to make money from homeopathic cures (which tend only to treat illnesses, not cure them) or are trying to win some political office.

The fact is, pharmaceutical companies DO try to cure illnesses because they know that the first one to market with a cure rather than a treatment will make the enormous profits needed to justify the billions they spend in R&D on that cure. Cures AND treatments are profitable, which is why pharmaceutical companies pursue both options for the myriad of diseases which plague mankind.

Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies are a convenient scapegoat for a lot of causes these days. One of my biggest gripes is when governments accuse drug companies of trying to gouge their citizens, then use that excuse to gouge the pharmaceutical industry in the form of price controls.

Forget about the fact that this kind of behaviour is anti-competitive. When the Canadian government, for example, does such a thing, it means that pharmaceutical companies must offset losses they’re forced to take in that market by adjusting prices in markets where there are no price controls.

So, who REALLY subsidizes Canadian pharmaceuticals? We do, of course.

There’s no free lunch, right? The tab for Canada’s lunch is being footed by citizens here in the US.

But that is not my main point for this post. That is a just a gripe I have. I’m tired of paying for other nations to have cheaper drugs.

With that said, no system is perfect, and our capitalist system for drug manufacturers has its weaknesses. One of those weaknesses is that pharmaceutical companies just cannot afford to pursue promising drugs and treatments if there is no profit in it.

After all, most of these companies are shareholder owned. I own a piece of them, as do millions of other investors. And we expect companies, no matter what product they manufacture, to make a profit. If they don’t, we take our money elsewhere. It’s a cold but efficient system which demands the highest margins of profit possible in order to build maximum shareholder value.

Which means that, every now and then, when pharmaceutical companies develop a wonder drug that helps, lets say, children with extremely rare forms of cancer, pharmaceutical companies may have to abandon both their research and the manufacturing of a drug. Why? Because it would be far more expensive to make than it could ever earn in the way of profits, and shareholders like myself will not tolerate such losses.

We’ve probably all heard examples of this. Dateline NBC ran a story recently. While watching the story, everyone wonders how companies could be so cruel as to let people suffer and die rather than take a huge loss manufacturing a drug which might or might not save someone’s loved one.

I can’t help myself; I think the same thing, even though I know rationally that no company can do such a thing and survive. But the emotional side of me insists that there ought to be a way.

And perhaps there is.

Why wouldn’t this be a good opportunity for a public/private partnership? What I mean is, our government throws oodles of money away each year on silly projects, why not throw some money into a fund that would subsidize the manufacture of drugs pharmaceutical companies would otherwise lose money manufacturing and selling?

You could set up a special task force within the FDA to hear petitions from parents and pharmaceutical companies to help fund the manufacturing of drugs that have proven to be effective, yet are too costly for these companies to manufacture. The pharmaceutical company, perhaps, could even waive it’s patent on the drug, perhaps for a fee, and either allow companies which produce generics to manufacture the drugs or allow some other entity to manufacture the drug for those who need it.

This way, pharmaceutical companies would show beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do care, while, at the same time, helping them recoup some of the massive costs incurred in R&D for that particular treatment.

It’s just an initial thought. Perhaps it will shape itself up over time.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

In regards to my previous post, “Air America’s Biggest Weakness is Its Institutional Mindset,” I made the point that the decision to create the liberal radio network, “Air America,” came from a false assumption on the part of liberals that the dominance of conservatives in the talk radio market was through a coordinated effort. Well, some notes sent to Power Line Blog, taken by a student who attended the Dean’s Lecture at Yale Law School where Al Franken was talking, give weight to the points I made in that post.

Now, apart from the fact that Al Franken as a guest speaker for a Dean’s Lecture at Yale Law School seems to me somewhat akin to appointing Bozo the Clown as Ambassedor to Canada (on second thought…), there is some value to examining the lecture notes provided to Powerline. Here are some salient points which support what I’ve been saying:

Starts with the “myth of liberal media.” Something that the right has been repeating over and over again for the last forty years. There is a lot of bias in the media but it isn’t liberal. The mainstream media maybe has some biases in terms of politics but they are pack mentality biases…

BUT there is a right-wing media: Fox News and talk radio. This is why Franken went into talk radio.

Of course, quite a few other liberals, including Al Gore have made similar points. “There is no liberal bias in the media,” while, at the same time underscoring their belief that “conservatives are aligned and coordinated and using radio and other media outlets like Fox News to spread their message.”

Yadda, yadda…

Is there a liberal bias in the MSM? No doubt.

Are liberals coordinated in their efforts to present certain points of view? I don’t believe so.

I just think that liberals report on the same things and in the same ways because, first of all, they borrow ideas from each other. Secondly, the same issues interest them. And, finally, the MSM has become increasingly evangelistic in it’s attempts to influence society.

And, of course, talk radio does lean heavily in the direction of conservative thought. Talk show hosts know it, they admit it, and they are happy to talk about it just about any time. So, at least conservatives recognize their own slant and are honest about it, whereas the Al Frankens of the world just can’t admit the MSM is heavily influenced by liberal thought.

Another thing that conservative radio hosts do, which Al Franken does not, is take calls from listeners on a regular basis and invite guests with opposing viewpoints to debate with them on the air. The question for Al then is, what’s he afraid of?

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

One of my favorite blogs, Powerline Blog, has been keeping tabs on various media sources as they chronicle liberal talk radio network Air America’s ongoing woes with debt and scandal.

Scott Johnson of Powerline Blog had an interesting post up just this morning. Here’s a piece of it:

Brian Maloney has the latest installment of the Air Ameriscam saga: “Panhandling next?” In a message early this morning, Maloney wrote: “Air America’s now resorting to begging for money from listeners. Don’t miss your chance to get an Air America bumper sticker before it shuts down for good!”

I’ll admit, if Air America folds tomorrow, I wouldn’t shed a tear or offer up a moment of silence. I might smile a little, though. I’ll let you know what I do when Air America finally closes its doors.

And make no mistake, they will close their doors. They were doomed from the start.

And not because liberal talk radio cannot do well in this country. There are MANY examples of liberal radio hosts who do very well. Michael Moore, for example, and Alan Colmes.

In truth, Air America was doomed from the start because it is a product of institutional thinking; something which comes quite naturally to many liberals. These liberals saw a massive, conservatively dominated, radio market, assumed that it was all planned and coordinated by conservatives operating cooperatively, and decided to do the same thing.

The only problem with that whole assumption, and the actions which flowed from it was that it was not true. In fact, the conservative radio market grew up gradually, with Rush Limbaugh leading the way in the 80’s and others who were inspired by his success following his lead soon after.

Now, about 20 years later, conservatives dominate this medium. But all of those conservative hosts built their shows up from scratch, with quite a few of them having already worked in the radio industry for decades.

They honed their style, their approach, built their audience, and generally rose up through the ranks by finding ways to draw their own audience. Some liberals followed suit and have been successful in exactly the same way.

But then you have the creation of the monolithic “Air America.” This was a company that was created on the assumption that conservative radio was an institution, not a competitive industry. So they created this institution to compete with what they thought was a conservative institution and, of course, they are failing miserably.

Institutions in general struggle in hypercompetitive markets like radio. In smaller, less competitive markets, where choices are limited, they do just fine. But, overall, in a national market, where only the strong survive and consumers decide who wins and who moves on to new careers, they just can’t compete.

When Air America finally folds, will it spell the end for all their on-the-air talent? I doubt it. The ones who have built an audience will likely just venture out on their own and continue doing what they were doing before; probably with a few tweaks to better meet audience demand. And, before very long, they’ll likely find out they’re doing far better on their own than they ever could have done as part of a monolithic orgnization like Air America.

As for the others, they’ll move on to new careers, or back to old ones. Who knows, though, perhaps the Air America concept will inspire more young liberals to move into radio. If so, then I wish them well.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Well, two fascinating — yet not fascinating — events taking place here in DC this week. First, Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, a man whose intellect and knowledge of the law wowed even his harshest critics, was given an “up” vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here is an interesting comment from Paul of Powerline Blog:

The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 13-5 in favor of recommending the confirmation of Judge Roberts. The vote among Demoratic members was three in favor (Leahy, Kohl, and Feingold) and five against (Biden, Kennedy, Schumer, Feinstein, and Durbin). The Democratic “no” vote on the 18 member Committee exceeds the number of Republican votes, Senate-wide, against Justice Ginsburg.

Not that anyone is shocked. Actually, Roberts received more Democratic votes than I had anticipated. Democratic excuses for “no” votes were legion, but, by far, one of the weirdest excuses was given by Dianne Feinstein of California who commented to the press that Judge Roberts had not talked enough about what kind of husband and father he is.

Say what?!

Are we back in the 1960’s again? Are employers allowed again to question potential employees regarding their families? Can companies bring in the “significant other” for a sit-down to talk about their counterpart? That used to happen you know.

What if the nominee (as may very well be the case before too long) had been a woman and a male Republican Senator had said something like this? I’m thinking feminists would immediately call for that senator’s resignation. And for good reason.

Oh, and, speaking of the 60s, Cindy Sheehan arrived in Washington for a weekend of anti-war protests. The SUVs carrying her and other Gold Star parents of lost service men and women arrived near the Capitol yesterday, at which time Cindy did a couple of symbolic things that had been preplanned for her by the professional protesters who travel the globe to speak out against war, globalism, capitalism, and anything else that sounds like it might be fun to protest.

They sported signs with the ever-familiar peace-sign, sang 60s war protest songs, chanted anti-war slogans, etc. Ms. Sheehan’s entourage is quite a bit smaller these days, but the liberal press still seems to love her.

All-in-all, they were just one Joan Baez short of a full rally!

I’ll stop there. I don’t want to make fun of Ms. Sheehan. Ultimately, she is a woman whose grief allowed her to become a willing object for a cause which dishonors the memory of her son, and every other man and woman who has died in the service of their country.

And Ms. Sheehan, as well as the other Gold Star parents accompanying her, are angry for just one reason… They’ve chosen to believe a lie. The lie being, of course, that their beloved child died for no reason.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

But, for now, the professional protesters will do everything in their power to keep the Cindy Sheehans of the world angry in the hopes of using it to power their movement. I think part of the mindset of the anti-war movement is that, an unpopular war is a war not worth fighting.

I wonder if there ever has been a “popular” war? Beyond that, I wonder if anti-war protesters know that one of the most unpopular wars in American history was the American Revolution?

I wonder if they would really even care if they did know.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

In previous posts (here, and here), I spoke out in very strong terms against political hacks who were desperately trying to turn the Hurricane Katrina disaster into “the perfect storm” of political controversy for the President. Many others have chimed in with me via their own blogs or on some of the conservative media sites around the web.

Definitely, the Hurricane Katrina disaster was an emotional event for the entire country, and MANY in the media showed the emotional impact this disaster was making on themselves as well as those around them during the worst parts of the disaster. Fox News had several reporters on the scene, all of whom were shocked, dismayed, angry, even outraged that women and children were laboring to survive in the heat, waiting for help to come. CNN reporters showed the same kinds of emotions, with one female reporter on the scene shedding tears while a husband and father told of losing his wife in the flood.

I don’t know about you, but that touched me. And it woke me up big time to the true scope of the disaster in New Orleans and surrounding areas. When you see Shep Smith from Fox News ready to completely lose it on O’Reilly’s show, you know there’s a problem.

Unfortunately, some members of the MSM decided that the death and destruction caused by Katrina would make terrific political fodder to throw at the President. And with the help of the hapless governor of LA. and mayor of New Orleans, who were desperate to point fingers, the liberal media used the dead and dying as a springboard of political opportunism.

Let me give you the perfect case in point.

On Sunday, September 4, during “Meet the Press” on NBC, moderator, Tim Russert, interviewed Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La. During the interview, Broussard told a singularly heartbreaking tale of a senior citizen who, for days after the hurricane, had been calling her son begging for help until, finally and tragically, she drowned in the after-hurricane deluge. Here is part of Broussard’s statement:

BROUSSARD: … The guy who runs this building I’m in, emergency management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” And he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you. Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday.” And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.

RUSSERT: Mr. President…

BROUSSARD: Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.

Sad, yes? Well, it would be if it weren’t all a lie. Here is what really happened, as outlined in a retraction by NBC, who labelled this whole event as a “misunderstanding”:

Subsequent reporting identified the man whom Broussard was referring to in the Meet the Press interview as Thomas Rodrigue, the Jefferson Parish emergency services director. Contacted on Friday by MSNBC.com, Rodrigue acknowledged that his 92-year-old mother and more than 30 other people died in the St. Rita nursing home. They had not been evacuated and the flood waters overtook the residence.

The chronology of the phone calls described by Broussard came under particular scrutiny by bloggers.

Rodrigue said he didn’t see or hear Broussard’s comments on Meet the Press. When told of the sequence of phone calls that Broussard described on Meet the Press, Rodrigue said “No, no, that’s not true.”

“I can’t tell you what he said that day, why he was confused, I’m assuming he was under a tremendous amount of pressure,” Rodrigue told MSNBC.

“I contacted the nursing home two days before the storm [on Aug. 27th] and again on the 28th of August,” Rodrigue said. “At the same time I talked to the nursing home I also talked to the emergency manager for St. Bernard Parish,” Rodrigue said, “to encourage that nursing home to evacuate like they were supposed to and they didn’t until it was too late.”

Broussard must have been confused “because I was calling, not my mother calling me, I was calling her,” Rodrigue said. Further, Rodrigue says he never made any calls after Monday, the day he figures his mother died, based on conversations he’s had with another person who had a family member perish inside St. Rita’s. Officials believe that the residents of St. Rita’s died on Monday, Aug. 29, not on Friday, Sept. 2, as Broussard had suggested.

Broussard could not be reached for comment Friday, but Jackie Bauer, a spokeswoman for Broussard who was present during the Meet the Press interview, said “it was a misunderstanding.”

Please note TWO interesting details here:

1. BLOGGERS were responsible for debunking Broussard’s BS story.
2. “The husband and wife owners of St. Rita’s nursing home,” where all of this occurred, “in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette have been charged with homicide in the case.”

Why were they charged with homocide? Because they should have heeded the MANDATORY evacuation order and gotten their people out. Instead, the owners survived and their elderly patients all died. And all of this happened during the Hurricane, long before federal resources could have been brought on the scene.

Why did Broussard get the details so wrong? Because they made the President look bad, of course, and the MSM ate this story like candy! Where were the fact-finders of the much-vaunted MSM? I guess they were off doing other things.

As for Mr. Russert, he called in to WTOP radio the next morning to comment on this story, express his sympathy for the victims, and to decry the Bush Administration for its failures. He sounded tired and I’m sure he was, but, at the very least, he allowed his bias to get in the way of his normally sound judgement. At worst, he showed his true stripes as yet another liberal member of the MSM who is willing to discard facts as long as it hurts a conservative President.

So, has Mr. Russert apologized for his remarks, which flowed from his emotional response to Mr. Broussard’s BS story? Not that I’m aware of. Too bad, I always thought of Russert as one of those in the MSM who had more integrity than most.

Guess I was wrong.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Newsmax.com is reporting that infamous kook, Louis Farrakhan, the guy who believes that alien spaceships abducted him, or something to that effect, is now telling his followers that the levees in New Orleans may have been “deliberately blown up.”

“I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach,” Farrakhan explained. “It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry.”

Okay, here’s a question… How in the world could someone see a 25-foot crater UNDER A LEVEE BREACH?! Wouldn’t the water first pour into that crater before then pouring into the streets of New Orleans?

And what about the rest of us, you know, the one’s who have been watching video footage of the breaches for the past three weeks? Why can’t we see it? Oh yeah, because it’s under water!

Finally, as we debunk the most ridiculous conspiracy theory I’ve heard in years, there is the little matter of all those houses in wealthier communities which were ruined when they too were swamped by water pouring through the breaches in the levee. Excuse me, Rev Farrakhan, the problem was not that only black neighborhoods were swamped, the problem was that most from wealthier neighborhoods evacuated before Katrina struck and so, were out of harms way when the levees were breached.

And if I can think of all this off of the top of my head, why can’t the leader of the “Nation of Islam” do the same thing?

Yeesh!

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

The AP reported recently on a speech from our old pal Al in San Francisco. What’s Al been up to lately? Well, to his credit and at the urging of his personal physician, he helped underwrite two plane flights to airlift out about 270 evacuees from New Orleans’ “Charity Hospital.”

Let’s give credit where credit is due. Thank you former-VP Gore for making a difference!

Unfortunately, not long after that, Gore went back to his regularly scheduled routine of criticising the President. This time, of course, Gore went after President Bush for the slow emergency response in New Orleans. Here is a bit of what he said at a Sierra Club event in San Francisco:

When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic flood waters five days after a hurricane struck, it is time not only to respond directly to the victims of the catastrophe, but to hold … the leaders of our nation accountable.

This is where we need to respectfully remind our former Veep that, in 1999, when Hurricane Floyd struck New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, it took far longer for federal resources to get things under control. And the complications related to flooding are far worse in New Orleans than they were in some of the areas effected by Floyd. So perhaps someone should gently remind this former VP that the administration he used to work for took nearly twice as long for one of it’s hurricane events.

Not to say that we couldn’t do better in terms of our national response. What I’m mostly saying here is that we can do better in terms of our rhetoric.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

I received a message from Keith Alioto, whose blog, Not So Empty Nest Syndrome, contains the links to the Don Geronimo’s on-air tribute to his wife, Freda. As I said in another post, it was an incredibly moving tribute.

Here are the links, which are hosted by Sacramento affiliate, KHTK: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Thank you Keith!!!

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

****UPDATE****

Well, as you can see, I was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG in my prediction regarding how the President would play the whole nomination process regarding a new Chief Justice. I guess the President’s plan makes sense too… but it wasn’t as good as mine.

I guess the last line of my post on this topic should have read; “scoff at me now, laugh at me later.” Good thing I’m not a real journalist, or a psychic for that matter!
********

The Chief Justice is dead; long live the Chief Justice!

That’s appropriate, don’t you think? After all, US Supreme Court justices receive lifetime appointments and, unlike Justice O’Connor, who had the sense to retire so that she could savor her accomplishments, spend time with family, and get away from the pressure cooker that is the life of a US Supreme, Chief Justice Rehnquist died “on the job,” in a sense, having decided to continue in his role to the end.

I think that was a mistake, but, it was his decision to make (no rhyme intended).

And now I think we’ll see, politically, John Roberts’ nomination fast-tracked by both Democrats as well as Republicans, with the full blessing of all those special interests, for two reasons:

• We have a vacancy on the Supreme Court at an inopportune moment, politically speaking. Both Democrats and Republicans are looking bad right now because of all the politicking and the recent events in New Orleans are not helping.
• Democrats and liberal special interests will be eager to move to what they see as the key battle, who will be the next Chief Justice and/or fill Chief Justice Rehnquist’s vacancy

Only, unfortunately for them, they are about to be blind-sided AGAIN!

Why? Because the next vacancy will be filled by a woman, and she will be nominated to fill the Chief Justice role vacated by Chief Justice Rehnquist.

And, even more unexpectedly, the nation has, in the past several days, stood witness to politics and politicians at their worst. I sincerely believe that voters are going to punish any party that tries to turn the nomination of the first female Chief Justice in the history of the US Supreme Court into a circus.

Isn’t it time for this kind of historic first? I think so.

Fortunately, President Bush has one of the best track records in history for ground-breaking appointments. Which is why, in my opinon, the first female Chief Justice is a done deal.

And if those liberal special interest groups and salivating Democratic partisans think they are going to turn this nomination into a war, they’d better think again.

They are about to flanked.

Scoff at me now and admire me later.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

In my last post, I expressed a great deal of anger over the fact that partisans were politicizing the horrible tragedy which has been unfolding in New Orleans. As a matter of fact, I accused them of being worse than the looters themselves.

First of all, I stand by what I said. Those who are using this tragedy to score political points against the President are scum.

Secondly, it turns out that the Mayor of New Orleans and Governor of LA ordered the mandatory evacuation only after receiving a special request from someone the radical left loves to hate, President Bush!

Here is the AP story which detailed the event:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome.

The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding. [emphasis mine]

Okay, lets recap…

First, the President declared that whole area a disaster area before Katrina hit so that FEMA could move into the area and prepare for recovery efforts. Which they did.

Then, the President called to issue a personal appeal to the Mayor and Governor, asking them to order a mandatory evacuation, a major step, to get everyone out before the storm hit.

So, why hasn’t anyone in the MSM talked about this?

We already know the answer to that, don’t we? Liberals in the MSM are not interested in helping the President. As I’ve already discussed, their goal is quite the opposite, which is why this AP report remained conveniently buried.

Shocker!

*Hat tip to Power Line Blog.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Many Americans have clearly lost their sense of shame.

I say that because the rhetoric from some of the MSM and hard left wackos has clearly gone far over the top. They are WORSE than the low-lifes who are in New Orleans right now breaking into stores and homes to steal valuables, TVs, computers, and whatever else they can get their hands on.

And just to clarify, I do not consider someone who goes into a store to get food and water a looter. They are trying to survive, and we all know and understand this.

But brainless wonders in New Orleans who are taking numerous items large and small from homes and shops all over the city are worthy only of our contempt. Do they even understand that they’ll likely never get their loot out of the city? Stupid AND dishonest… A winning combination, don’t you think?

But even lower are those partisans in the MSM and elsewhere who are joyfully using this horrible disaster to try and score points against the President. I thought I had seen the worst kinds of behaviour possible from these idiots, but they’ve clearly sunk to a new low, publishing some articles blaming the disaster on President Bush BEFORE the hurricane had even struck! Here are a few examples, brought to you by James Taranto of Opinionjournal.com, the online opinion section of the Wall Street Journal:

• Cindy Sheehan: “George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego, so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused.”
• Josh Marshall: “I know we’re supposed to be observing an accountability free moment for the president. But there are just too many examples out there of the ways in which his policies have contributed to and accentuated this crisis. No more letting this man’s failures become his own argument against accountability. It’s always been a live-for-today presidency.”
• Andrew Sullivan: “Blaming Bush and the war for the poor state of New Orleans’ levees is a legitimate argument. And it could be a crushing one.”
• Molly Ivins: “Does this mean we should blame President Bush for the fact that New Orleans is underwater? No, but it means we can blame Bush when a Category 3 or Category 2 hurricane puts New Orleans under.”
• New York Times editorial: “George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. . . . Since this administration won’t acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.”
  (The Alenda Lux blog has an excellent dissection of this editorial.)

Interestingly, Taranto goes on to mention that, last year, when hurricane Charley struck Florida, the same idiots who are complaining about the President’s slow response now were complaining that he acted TOO FAST during that crisis.

‘Even before the storm hit, the president declared four counties disaster areas to speed federal money to victims,’ CBS News reported a year ago. ‘But that quick response fueled suspicion that he is using disaster politics to help his campaign in one of the most critical battleground states.’

Yet another complaint heard today from Bush-haters was that the President should have flown in to visit and comfort victims there.

First of all, that’s completely insane. Order has not even been restored and these folks want the President to waltz on over with his Secret Service detail to say hello? Yeah, that’ll work!

Secondly, if the President HAD done that, these same losers would now be complaining that he was using the disaster for political gain! Worse, the media would likely then note that, “the President, after refusing to meet with the mother of slain serviceman Casey Sheehan, chose instead to meet with victims of hurricane Katrina.”

You don’t agree? This is exactly what has happened in the past. When President Bush flew in to speak with rescue workers after 9/11, many accused him of politicizing the disaster. They went on to accuse him over and over and over again every time he would even mention 9/11. And you think those same people wouldn’t happily do so again in this situation? If you do, then I have a bridge to sell you.

There’s no way the President can ever please such idiots. With that said, I do wish all of these whiners at least had a sense of shame. It’s very likely the looters in New Orleans didn’t plan in advance to steal from homes and stores in response to this disaster, but I have no doubt that some members of the MSM, as well as others, did plan this kind of assault in advance.

When a person plans in advance to use natural disasters and human suffering for political gain, then they have lost all credibility. Truly they have become worse than the looters.

Shame on them. And shame on anyone who chooses to politicize this disaster in any way. Can we at least rescue our fellow citizens and bury our dead before such idiots start in again with their partisan attacks?

That was a rhetorical question. We already have the answer… Don’t we?

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com