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Sunday, September 04, 2005
Indictment
If this is true, it says far more about a compliant press culture which willingly allows America to be deceived by backdrops and clever camera angles than it does about an administration willing to take advantage of that compliance:
There was a striking discrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.
ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.
The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.
The good news is that we're finally seeing a push back against misinformation. Here's CNN playing the reality card:
"It wasn't until comparatively late, shortly before -- a day, maybe a day and a half, before landfall -- that it became clear that this was going to be a Category 4 or 5 hurricane headed for the New Orleans area."
As far back as Friday, August 26, the National Hurricane Center was predicting the storm could be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, with New Orleans directly in its path. Still, storms do change paths, so the possibility existed that it might not hit the city.
And a U.S. Senator calls FAKE! loud and clear:
"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast -- black and white, rich and poor, young and old -- deserve far better from their national government.
Contrariwise, I don't blame Bush for visiting the disaster sites. If helicopters were grounded to serve as props for a photo op, that's unacceptable. But if helicopters were grounded for 90 minutes to protect the president from attack, that's understandable procedure:
In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, just south of New Orleans, victims of the hurricane are still waiting for food and water and for buses to escape the floodwaters, Melancon said. And for the entire time Bush was in the state, the congressman said, a ban on helicopter flights further stalled the delivery of food and supplies.
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".
