[NutCrackerBoy]

I have been thinking, during the hysterical media tirades since the hurricane struck New Orleans at the end of August, that the media may be exaggerating almost everything. -Michael Novak, National Review Online

[OldFriend]

How ludicrous to see a program on CNN celebrating the breakdown ON THE AIR of most of their reporters in NO.

They even included Whorealdo, as a shining example of how appropriate was the hysterical response of the CNN reporters.

[SF Republican]

that the media may be exaggerating almost everything. - Didn't Samuel Clements state (and I paraphrase) I have heard of many calamities, most of which never occurred.

[Uncle Fud]

I was also deeply suspicious that some of the horror stories reported breathlessly in the first few days, especially from within the Superdome, never happened. Five-year-old girls raped, the throat of a little boy slit, dead babies stacked in refrigerator units, a hundred dead bodies stuffed under stadium seats. The reporting from the first five days or so will soon deserve a thorough going-over. No evidence of the worst stories has afterwards emerged, so far as I can see.

Lots of posts here on FR were circulating the same sort of hysteria.

[cake_crumb]

"The reporting from the first five days or so will soon deserve a thorough going-over."

The time for that is RIGHT NOW, because the death toll only stands at around 290 with the recovery operation winding up. The media keeps telling us they're a government watchdog.....but who's watching the watchdog?

[bobjam]

Imagine if this storm had hit the Netherlands...

[McGavin999]

Oh, and let me address one more utterly suspect report. It takes more than four days for people to "starve," even in the Superdome. Does no one remember Terri Schiavo's horrible ordeal?

TG somebody finally said that. I've been thinking that right from the start but no way was I going to post that on this forum!

[ArGee]

They are too easily shocked, too easily blown away. Maybe it is only a matter of appearances, but they seem to me not to have been permanently toughened by such horrors as World War II and so many other hellholes of our lifetime.

That's what I thought when I heard some woman complaining that she'd been stuck on a bridge for 3 days with no shade and DEMANDED to know where her rescuers were. I don't mean to make light of those 3 days, but I wanted to say, "Honey, the rescuers are pulling people out of attics who are about to drown. They are pulling people out of trees that are about to topple in the flood waters. They are searching for people who are trapped and can't get to the comfort of a dry bridge in the sun.

Priorities are a fact of life. Had I been on that bridge I hope I would have been thanking G-d I was alive instead of complaining.

Shalom.

[Ditter]

I would not have been in the least bit surprised if 10,000 people had died as a result of Katrina but I grew up on stories of the 1900 storm in Galveston. In Galveston 6,000 to 10,000 people did die and the number of people in the affected area was much smaller than in this storm.

[Jackson Brown]

VERY well written piece.

Though it isn't EXACTLY the same topic, the European's view of the US Federal Government's response shows a complete lack of understanding of US Federalism and such laws as the Posse Comitatus Act, as well as others.

They seem to NOT know that the STATE is LEGALLY in charge within their borders -- over the feds -- until they turn over control to the Federal Government or the Federal government declares martial law IF the State government is out of commission.

It's seems the US press doesn't want to acknowledge/include these particulars of US law either!