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More on Katrina [Ben Stein]
American Spectator ^ | September 12, 2005 | Ben Stein

Posted on 09/12/2005 6:00:49 AM PDT by Quilla

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To: All

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.


21 posted on 09/12/2005 6:25:59 AM PDT by Presby Conservative
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To: labard1
Coming soon: The Ray Nagin Humanitarian Award from the DNC.
22 posted on 09/12/2005 6:27:28 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Troubled by NOLA looting ? You ain't seen nothing yet.)
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To: Quilla
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
23 posted on 09/12/2005 6:27:43 AM PDT by b4its2late (FOOTBALL REFEREES: It's tough playing with us, but you can't play the game without us.)
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To: Quilla
The MSM approach to the coverage of the storm and events immediately following it is nothing more than a wholesale and groundless broadside against Conservatism and especially against the President. Groundless is the operative word. Nothing as dramatic as a storm of this magnitude happens without the omniscient media attention and all subsequent and related events and activities become immediately and fully transparent. How the MSM has the face to perpetuate such groundless and malicious falsehood in the face of what is a full and factual visual record as well as other and less emotional documentation which is readily and freely available is the ABSLOUTE LIMIT! They have placed themselves in the worst possible position a news organization can or ought to find itself. 'Rathergate' was bad enough but now, no one ever will be able to find them credible.
24 posted on 09/12/2005 6:29:43 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Stay together, pay the soldiers and forget everything else." Lucius Septimus Severus)
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To: Quilla

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.


25 posted on 09/12/2005 6:35:22 AM PDT by BIRDS
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To: silverleaf

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?


26 posted on 09/12/2005 6:35:38 AM PDT by absolootezer0 ("My God, why have you forsaken us.. no wait, its the liberals that have forsaken you... my bad")
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To: Quilla
plus the bases were loaded.

Big Ben BUMP
27 posted on 09/12/2005 6:36:51 AM PDT by vin-one (REMEMBER the WTC !!!!!!!!)
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To: Presby Conservative

Good idea.


28 posted on 09/12/2005 6:37:08 AM PDT by labard1
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To: absolootezer0

"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.


29 posted on 09/12/2005 6:41:29 AM PDT by labard1
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To: BIRDS

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.


30 posted on 09/12/2005 6:44:25 AM PDT by Quilla
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To: Quilla

bump


31 posted on 09/12/2005 6:50:22 AM PDT by RippleFire ("It's a joke, son!")
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To: Peach
The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.
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.


32 posted on 09/12/2005 6:50:56 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: silverleaf
Ben Stein for White House Press Secretary

Excellent Choice. The man defines unflappable.

33 posted on 09/12/2005 6:53:56 AM PDT by 6SJ7
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To: pageonetoo

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.


34 posted on 09/12/2005 7:01:30 AM PDT by Sunshine Sister
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To: Quilla

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.


35 posted on 09/12/2005 7:01:30 AM PDT by AIC
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To: Quilla

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.


36 posted on 09/12/2005 7:01:41 AM PDT by BIRDS
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To: Quilla

Ben Bump.


37 posted on 09/12/2005 7:03:48 AM PDT by GVnana
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To: GreenEggsNHam

BE-U-ELL-ER!!! Ben Stein is the MAN!


38 posted on 09/12/2005 7:03:50 AM PDT by ericthecurdog (NOBODY puts BABY in the corner!!)
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bump


39 posted on 09/12/2005 7:07:11 AM PDT by eureka! (Hey Lefties: Only 3 and 1/4 more years of W. Hehehehe....)
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To: roses of sharon

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.


40 posted on 09/12/2005 7:09:54 AM PDT by wouldntbprudent ("Tell the truth. The Pajama People are watching you.")
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