Guest blogged by David Edwards
As the right-wing talking heads began their lockstep effort to deflect blame and obscure truth about hurricane relief efforts, Media Matters has been monitoring the lies, distractions and talking points. Media Matters has alerted the media about their continuing efforts of helping to enable the spread of these malicious falsehoods:
1. Bush: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”
2. Chertoff strained credulity in defense of Bush, claimed levee breaks and massive flooding came as a surprise — more than 12 hours after local media reported them
3. Brown: “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day”
4. Chertoff: “Apparently, some time on Wednesday, people started to go to the convention center spontaneously”
5. Chertoff pointed fingers: “New Orleans officials and the state officials … called for the Superdome to be the refuge of last resort”
6. Chertoff falsely minimized federal government’s role in Katrina response as subordinate to states
7. Wash. Post, Newsweek, Gingrich falsely claimed that Blanco did not declare a state of emergency
8. Gingrich falsely claimed that Nagin could “have kept water pumped out” of city had he ensured that pumps worked
Read the Media Matters article and learn how each of the corporate media organizations quickly went from being the brave first-responders we saw reporting the Katrina story to a mere tool for spreading Bush Administration propagana.
Crooks and Liars also has nice video from MSNBC showing the timeline of lies.
let’s not forget this one.
Only 13 % of Americans Blame the President.
Jesus, this is incredible. I clicked on the Crooks & Liars "timeline of lies" link, from above, and then clicked on "Bob Harris", where he shows a map of the counties that, apparently, were named in bush’s statement declaring a state of emergency, and they are exactly the WRONG ones. Is this possible? (Is that a silly question?) Please look at this:
http://www.bobharris.com/content/view/637/1/
From Bob Harris:
"Welcome to upside-down-land: the areas at risk for Katrina were quite remarkably the areas not included in Bush’s declaration of emergency.
What the hell?
Compare and contrast with the full and specific statewide list of parishes and the services they will receive issued after the storm hit.
Is this really what Bush authorized before the storm hit? Are they really that incompetent?…"
Nobody should get carried away and believe polls by rasmussen claiming only 13% blame the president, this is where the war is waged is in the court of opinion.
First of all knock out the smokescreen of lies by showing how none of the locals have control over the evacuation procedures for a national emergency without help from the gov. They can’t handle it on their own, and the lie is that they are supposed to.
The facts of ships, helicopters and countless supplies and equipment by FEMA unused has to be shouted in every iteration. It also must be connected back to Iraq, like Cindy Sheehan is doing by pointing out that yes the whole national guard is out of the country. No there was no preparedness at all even though the whole plan was made over a year ago.
While Iraq drained all the funds that would have saved this disaster from getting so bad, the federal administration completely dropped the ball and Bush basically strummed guitar. That’s the point that must be consistently rehearsed. You need the polls of what america truly sees and that is, no one could have prevented thousands of deaths except the bush administration.
The buck stops right there.
Doug E.
Anyone catch Shawn Penn on Larry king he wanted to say something bad about bush he was about to bust. But his boat sank and he liked to drown before he pulled off his bullet proof vest. So he kept quite about that for now.
NEWSFLASH…NEWSFLASH…NEWSFLASH…
SEE STORY HERE
http://www.informationclearingh...ticle10196.htm
Link for above
I turn off their Rovian "stars" when they begin their spiel. I leave the tv off long enough to be noticed, too. Believe me, it will be noticed if enough of their previously enslaved viewers are no longer goggling. This could be why some media have actually been covering the real news and are apparent converts to reality.
Naming the wrong counties for emergency relief indeed. To them "in the looking glass" would consist of putting the emergency funding for their plans for the NEO WORLD PORT OF THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY, (NWPNAC), formerly known as New Orleans. So far, think about it, they have glommed onto every pot of gold they have gone after (missing funds world wide). And this won’t be the last time, if they are underestimated, and are not stopped.
Did they not pass funding this morning for billions of emergency funding for NO with nothing for the other congressmen to read?
Did EXXON report $10 billion profits last quarter?
Did Halliburton not receive multi $bill clean-up contract?
#1 Oops you are behind times HCOCDR 59% gave Bush a negative.
Gosh, just amazing when you say you are fighting in Iraq but have so much time to get on all the blogs. Funny, my guys don’t have that much free time. What Squad are you with, maybe my guys could transfer and have a break.
HCO is a lying loser, its time to put them out of their collective misery and pop their umbrellas.
Lindy you must get to all your fellow republicans, open their eyes quickly before the oil companies who are out of control start drilling and taking over their towns too. As soon as Florida is destroyed by the incoming disaster expected, its going to get much worse and I wouldn’t be surprised some of florida’s government die.
They have been committing evil acts for a while now, and Jeb Bush doesn’t have any escape from the rule of justice. Global Warming is the ‘god’ which our manmade sins have cultivated, and now its here to wreck the place.
Doug E.
We all know responses to polls depend on how the questions are asked. To be honest, no the shrub did not cause Katrina, nor any other hurricane. BUT he is responsible for the cuts (we all know where the money went!) that should have gone to enforce the levees and dikes. He IS responsible for appointing 2 people who don’t have experience in emergency mgmt and people died waiting to be rescued, and for lack of food, water, medicine, etc. I guess ambassadors to some country wasn’t harmful enough! I know the shrub cannot relate since he himself is not qualified for his own position. As he said during the debates, "it’s hard work!" He’s over his head, and people throughout the world are suffering! Same song different verse, IMPEACH – IMPEACH – IMPEACH!!
While watching that video of Bush saying that "No one could have anticipated the levies breaking…" it struck me how easily and flawlessly the lies come out of his mouth, like he’s been practicing this sort of thing for a very long time.
# 5
Was Cheney going to say "Must be a friend of John Conyers"?? Guess we’ll never know!
To #2 Joan:
I took a look at the map of those parishes Bush declared a state of emergency in that you provided and is too contrived and creepy to be incompetence. As soon as I looked at it I shivered; I wonder if you compare it with a map of which parishes went for Bush in November and which went for Kerry I wonder how it might compare/contrast? Out of curiousity does anyone have a map of the blue/ red parishes from the Nov. 2004 "election" handy?
Also, does anyone have a map of Louisiana from a population demographics standpoint, as in which parishes are predominantly populated by whites and which are predominantly populated by blacks, which parishes are more affluent per capita, which are less well-off and which are per capita more in the grip of poverty? It just might turn out to be interesting to compare the map of Bush’s emergency-declared parishes with them.
I just submitted a "positive" comment to CNN. It went like this:
Anyway, that’s really the truth, so I thought I would put it on the line for them — that is, reward them as easily as I would punish them.
I haven’t dared to watch MSNBC, CNBC, or FauxNews and see if they’ve grown any balls, though I’ve heard occasional rumors. I see that the NYT reporting pages (as opposed to the editorial pages) is a bit more questioning than in the past, but that the WAPO is still carrying water for the White House.
I think that there are REPORTERS within these institutions (well, maybe not Faux) that really CARE about telling the truth, and maybe felt that the footage was strong enough and the public outcry powerful enough that they could go out on a limb against their corporate bosses. BUT, we need to let them know we are there watching the advertisements, or their bosses will eventually come down on them.
September 24-26 will be a good sign. IF they give it any coverage, and don’t slant it to look like it’s nothing but a bunch of anarchists, then maybe we can take back our country. If not, then a corporate fascist state is all but guaranteed, and we should fear for the safety of the whole world.
Charlie L
Portland, OR
CLL2001@gmail.com