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Tuesday, September 06, 2005
All together now, "If Bill Clinton had done this..."
I will be interested to see if this gets as much negative coverage as Bill Clinton's supposed hair cut that delayed air traffic at LAX back in 1993. An event, I believe, that never really happened.Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.
5 Comments:
An event, I believe, that never really happened.
The event happened, just not as it was originally reported. There was a haircut in Airforce One, and runways were shut down (which is standard security), but there weren't any delays.
By 
Joseph Thvedt, at
6:47 AM
There is, reportedly, an FAA report to that effect.
Even still, it's fair to say that I disagree with Jambo on this, at least a bit: If Bush doesn't go to the disaster site, he gets criticized for not caring and being out of touch. If he does go to the disaster site, he gets criticized for the standard security procedures. Ideally, of course, the President's visit would not interrupt helicopter flights, but nothing in this disaster approaches "ideal".
If he is going to get criticized either way you would think a decent president (or decent human being for that matter) would choose the criticism that resulted in the least damage to relief efforts. He certainly could have struck a concerned pose back in DC and sent a subordinate (where's Dick Cheaney been anyway?) and held a press conference on the topic saying that he would like to go down and show his support but realizes the logistical aspects of a presidential visit would hamper the relief effort. They could even come up with some self aggrandizing speech about how he was putting the needs of others ahead of his desire for a photo op. But Bush and crew know that in our society pictures trump words so they would trade just about anything for a good photo of W looking presidential and concerned. Heck I'm surprised he didn't pull out the old "Mission Accomplished" flight suit and cod piece.
BUT, my larger point was that Bill Clinton got more bad press for things that he didn't do than W seems to get for things he does do. That may be changing this week. We'll see.
The real test is whether the media notices that the audience is becoming aware of the stagecraft. Will the news remain complicit in the manipulation? Or will they bring out the wide angle lens and let a little reality in?
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