Posted on 09/12/2005 6:00:49 AM PDT by Quilla
Fact: Katrina was a devastating storm. It left terrible damage to innocent people's lives and to property throughout the Gulf South.
Fact: There have been other storms as damaging and some far more damaging. What, then, is different about this storm? Here are a few tentative thoughts.
First, the incompetence of the local and state authorities in Louisiana and especially New Orleans was breathtaking. To issue a mandatory evacuation order without providing means of transport is almost criminally irresponsible. To take citizens to shelters where they would be beaten, robbed and raped and to provide no police protection for them was astoundingly incompetent. To allow armed gangs to shoot at rescuers was almost beyond belief.
Second, the response of the federal government is described as slow, and it was slow at first. But can anyone name a natural disaster in which more federal troops, supplies, and money have been dispatched as quickly as they have been done in this disaster? Bush's response has not been unusually bad, but amazingly powerful and swift. In other hurricanes, survivors have been left for weeks on their own. In Katrina's case, the whole affected area has been covered with money and aid and troops to restore order on a scale and with speed never seen before.
Third, the networks and newspapers have been quick to cry racism because so many of the victims were black. This is total nonsense. New Orleans is a mostly black city. Obviously, most of the victims of the storm would be black. No one has been able to point to a single instance in which black victims were mistreated because of their race by whites. In fact, just the opposite has happened. The whole story is of rescues and salvation by people of all races aimed at people of all races. In a gesture never seen before, the whole heart of the nation has taken in poor, bereft black families and sheltered them absolutely without regards to race. This is a mirror of the basic goodness of Americans and the disappearance of racism as an acceptable action basis of American life. It is also a measure of the total absence of racism in the heart of George W. Bush. The media may play this as a story of race versus race, but that is pure incendiary fantasy, and dangerous nonsense.
What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.
They used the storm and its attendant sorrows to continue their endless attack on George W. Bush. Wildly inflated stories about the number of dead and missing, totally made up old wives' tales of racism, breathless accounts of Bush neglect that are utterly devoid of truth and of historical context -- this is what the mainstream media gave us. The use of floating corpses, of horror stories of plagues, the sad faces of refugees, the long-faced phony accusations of intentional neglect and racism -- anything is grist for the media's endless attempts to undermine the electorate's choice last November. It is sad, but true that the media will use even the most heart breaking truths -- and then add total inventions -- to try to weaken and then evict from office a man who has done nothing wrong, but has instead turned himself inside out to help the real victims.
In the meantime, George Bush does not lash out, does not attack those who falsely accuse him of the most horrible acts and neglect. Instead, he doggedly goes on helping the least among us. I don't know how he does it, but we are very lucky he does. As for truth, it eventually may be salvaged from the flooded neighborhoods of The Crescent City, but not as long as there is a lie to use to hurt an honest man trying to do the best he can, and hundreds of thousands of brave, tireless men and women who do more than point fingers and tell tales. The Katrina story is a disgrace to the people who are "reporting" it while pouring gasoline on a fire. They and their crusade against George Bush are the real stories, and they are dismal ones.
Can I encourage FReepers to copy Ben Stein's commentary and send to everyone on their email list. What I have found is that far more people will read an email from a friend than they will read a commentary in a newspaper.
The best way for Free Republic to refute the tabloid-talking-heads in the Main Stream Media is to get our message out via the email system.
Yes, I agree: "outta the park," BUT, I also think that Democrats are incapable of making sense about this and other very, very important issues. They're just hammering on about Hillary in 2008 and this is just the start of it, but they'll never make sense and, worse, time and again prove that they are not capable of providing leadership.
Which answers, right there, what the incentives are: lack of leadership for the United States and then everything they want afterward will fall into place, along with our democracy.
i dunno, maybe we should look at a higher office for him. from the aritcles i've read, he seems to be fairly conservative, anyone know his politics or if he would ever run for office?
Good idea.
"anyone know his politics"
His dad was the famous economist, Herb Stein, who was an adviser to Richard Nixon. He got his Republican leanings with his mother's milk.
Scrolling across the screen on Fox News this morning, I noticed two comments but missed any commentary on their content. One was that the democrats may refuse to appoint members for a congressional hearing on the response to Katrina. Secondly, Hillary doesn't want to point fingers.
Well of course not! An investigation will reveal the failings of the first responders and if anyone's going to point fingers, they will all be in the direction of incompetent democrats.
bump
I'm interested in the issue of the promised congressional hearings on the relief response to Katrina.Clearly Congress has the authority to investigate the conduct of the Administration; Congress after all has the authority to impeach the president of the United States.
But does Congress have the authority to investigate a sitting governor? Congress doesn't select or ratify the nominations of governors, and Congress doesn't have the authority to impeach them, either. And governors don't report to the president, either - President Bush was completely stymied when the Governor of Louisiana did not elect to do what President Bush recommended.
So the issue becomes whether in fact the Republican congressional majority can do anything at all about the propaganda assigning all blame for the aftermath of the hurricane to the Bush Administration. But when the issue is framed as a propaganda issue, it should be clear that the federal government does in fact have some resources. And a legitimate investigative target.
The problem is in fact that the distiction between "objective journalism" and the Democratic Party is not a substantive difference. Liberal "objective" journalism will always hype any problem, and will always blame the nearest Republican for any given problem. And that is all that is going on in the fingerpointing over the Katrina aftermath.
The organizational reality is that the local and state governments of New Orleans and Louisiana were the first responders in the Katrina disaster; the federal government has a role only as the governor of Louisiana requestst it. And the fact is that the (Democratic) governor of Louisiana did not ask for - did not allow - federal involvement in the aftermath of Katrina until the die was cast that there would be an insurrection in New Orleans delaying rescue efforts and until unnecessary suffering in the Superdome and the Convention Center was inevitable.
True to form, "objective" journalism and the rest of the Democratic Party has been insinuating that President Bush should have done what only the Democratic governor and mayor in question were authorized to do. Print journalism is as independent of the Congress as the governor of Louisana is, but print journalism is not where the action is. The core of the problem is broadcast journalism, and broadcast journalism - all broadcasting - exists at the pleasure of Congress. It exists because the FCC censors competion in radio transmission, and the FCC exists by congressional statute.
IMHO the right thing for Congress to do is investigate the disaster response to define the limits of the president's authority to respond, and compare that to the actual behavior of the administration. And compare the performance in Louisiana with that in Mississippi and Alabama, with the differing behaviors of the governors of those states. But part of documenting the problems in Louisiana must be to discuss the coverage of the event. The broadcast coverage which is ultimately done under government sanction. The real issue is the fact that government is giving sanction to claims of objectivity from Democratic activists.
Excellent Choice. The man defines unflappable.
The MSM lost a long time ago. I turned on the news last night to see what was going on. The first 2 stories on the NBC station were so factually challenged that I turned the TV off rather than scream at them for getting it wrong.
One of the main problems with the U.S. is that a large portion of the population does not know any thing about state laws and the difference between state and federal laws and which has which responsibility and that will believe anything that anyone tells them that seems plausible.
Yes, it's a Nancy Pelosi dictum that she is asking that no Democrats participate on any Katrina Commission. Maybe an order, but the message is the same.
THAT way, they can cry out about anything and everything that is determined by the Commission.
Pelosi is yet another example of Democrats who cannot lead just trying to get in the way. Honestly, if ever there was a more foolish directive by anyone in the House, this one is it by Pelosi.
Ben Bump.
BE-U-ELL-ER!!! Ben Stein is the MAN!
bump
That's my question, too: we know this type of reporting is a cancer on our country---it probably set the poorest of the poor back 100 years in terms of the hate and anger it fomented---but what do we do about it?
I like the idea of taking a cue from how Ben described Bush---not lashing out (except here, of course, where we need to vent for sanity's sake), but doggedly going about the work of spreading (through word and deed) the truth.
Fortunately, the lamestream media's days are numbered. Unfortunately, the people who most need the power that knowledge brings will be the last off the lamestream media's plantation.
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