Today's Rita Coverage Stirs Ashes of Katrina's Racial Discord: "Afraid You Could Be Left Behind?"

Today Show's Rita Coverage Stirs Ashes of Katrina's Racial Discord: "Were You Afraid You Could Be Left Behind?"

In its Katrina coverage, the MSM made hay at President Bush's expense in suggesting that the government's sluggish response was the result of racism.

Given the early and energetic preparations of government at all levels for Rita, you might think that it would impossible for the MSM to recycle the racism canard. But that didn't stop the Today show from giving it the old college try this morning.

Lester Holt normally strikes me as a solid professional. In footage from yesterday aired on this morning's show, Holt reported from Galveston, covering the last of the evacuees, largely poor people it seemed, being put on school buses "who had no other way to leave."

Holt asked what appeared to be a poor black mean sitting on a school bus about to be evacuated: "were you afraid that you could be left behind here?"

The implication was unmistakable, the 'subliminable' message clear: "were you afraid that you could be abandoned here in the same way that people [overwhelmingly black in numbers] were left to fend for themselves at the convention center and elsewhere in New Orleans?"

You can't blame an MSM reporter for trying. Exploiting the racial divide for political gain is what they do.

<> Finkelstein has degrees from Cornell University and Harvard Law School.He lives in Ithaca, NY where he hosts "Right Angle," a local political talk show. Finkelstein specializes in exposing liberal bias at NBC's Today Show.

MoveOn.org Says Ready For Rita

Galveston, Texas - As Texas Gulf Coast braced for the worst, activist group MoveOn.org today began moving massive convoys of celebrities, civil rights rights spokesmen, reporters, conspiracy theorists and litigators into the region for the expected weekend landfall of Hurricane Rita.

MoveOn spokesman Peter Maloney said that the organization made painful mistakes during the Hurricane Katrina disaster which they would strive to avoid with Rita.

"Frankly, we were caught flat-footed by the Katrina," said Maloney. "We lost almost six hours before were able to coordinate our blame workers with our complaint teams, let alone set up basic communication links with the European media."

"This time, though, we are locked and loaded," he added, pointing to a detailed pre-Hurricane response plan that includes over 10 satellite uplink trucks, redundant teleprompters, and over 200 pounds of nails to flatten the tires of evacuating residents.

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(1)Many middle-class and wealthy folks in NY don't own cars

I can understand folks in NYC not having cars, but elsewhere, no way. We had a German exchange student who came with that same mindset of every American wastefully owned a car. He learned from a textbook that Texas was twice the size of Germany and had 1/5th the population, but hadn't grasped the whole concept until after being here for a few weeks. Public transportation simply wouldn't work here. Towns usually 35 miles apart. The drive into town to work, shop, or attend school 15-20 miles one way. Yep, gotta have my SUV.

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