I posted this at our Progressive Bloggers site, but Susan Hu read it and encouraged me to post it here… so here goes:
I’ve been watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s horrific damage and I’ve been stunned by the magnitude of the destruction. The reporters who are at the scene in New Orleans and Biloxi and in Alabama are finding it hard to remain the “neutral observer” a reporter is supposed to be when covering a story. Something else has happenned as well – the normally docile mainstream media in the US has gotten a spine and is criticizing this administration at an unheard-of level.
I have seen scores of newpaper editorials slamming the Bush Administration for its slow response and its even slower attempts to get aid and help to the victims. Not just liberal papers like the NY Times, but conservative papers like the New Hampshire Union-Leader. I have seen anchor after anchor on CNN blast the absence of the National Guard, the Army, FEMA and so on.
I have just seen Anderson Cooper on CNN openly challenge Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, (a conservative Democrat) who was in the midst of handing out platitudes to President Bush and the Congress for reconvening, telling her that he’s sick and tired of politicians glad-handing other politicans when he’s seeing dead bodies lying in the streets for 4 days getting eaten by rats and no help in sight for survivors.
I am seeing people in New Orleans and Biloxi crying out “where is the Army, where is the National Guard?” The answer that doesnt need to be said because everyone knows it is that a lot of them arent around to help – they’re off in Iraq, along with a lot of equipment that could have been used to help save lives.
I have seen Republican House Leader Dennis Hastert get publicly skewered for suggesting that maybe New Orleans shouldnt be rebuilt and it might be a waste of funds to allocate money for it.
I’ve seen Jack Cafferty, a curmudgeonly rightwing-leaning commentator on CNN, say this:
The thing that’s most glaring in all of this is that the conditions continue to deteriorate for people who are victims and the efforts to do something about it don’t seem to be anywhere in sight. […]
The questions that we ask in The Situation Room every day are posted on the website two or three hours before we go on the air and people who read the website often begin to respond to the questions before the show actually starts. The question for this hour is whether the government is doing a good job in handling the situation.
I gotta tell you something, we got five or six hundred letters before the show actually went on the air, and no one – no one – is saying the government is doing a good job in handling one of the most atrocious and embarrassing and far-reaching and calamatous things that has come along in this country in my lifetime. I’m 62. I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as bungled and as poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can’t sandwiches be dropped to those people in the Superdome. What is going on? This is Thursday! This storm happened 5 days ago. This is a disgrace. And don’t think the world isn’t watching. This is the government that the taxpayers are paying for, and it’s fallen right flat on its face as far as I can see, in the way it’s handled this thing.
Cafferty then says, “you know, when they were removing Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube, Congress got back in session on a Sunday night to pass some sort of a resolution. Here, they might get back on Friday — the storm hit Monday. I guess it’s all what’s important to you…”
And even more remarkable.. the FoxNews reporters – some of the biggest apologists of Bush and the Administration anywhere – are also angrily asking where is the federal aid… where is the help for these people? Shep Smith is most notable among this group.. so much so he is taking grief from the wingnuts at FreeRepublic, upset that he’s making their hero Bush look inept by interviewing the desperate people, showing dead bodies and asking hard questions.
As an outside observer of your political process, I find it extremely ironic that it may not be the Iraq war or PlameGate that ends the Republicans dominance in the US government.. but Mother Nature.
People are angry and upset. They cant vote Bush out.. but they might remember what Party he belongs to in 2006 and 2008. That goes for people in the other Party who might be perceived as being too close to this Administration and supporting their incompetence (this means you, Senator Landrieu).
Come visit us at Canadian Progressive Bloggers sometime for reading Canadian Progressive goings-on in this country and for our perspectives.
(That goes for all the Canucks on here I keep bugging to visit us and contribute your diary thoughts to our pages.. cough.. Catnip.. cough 😉
The transformation of the reporters is remarkable. I just watched one on MSNBC–sorry, I don’t know his name–who seemed exhausted, moved, upset, everything a real human being would feel when confronted with what he’s seeing. Then there was his anchor, Rita Crosby, being obnoxious beyond believing, but she’s the minority of the ones I’m seeing.
This may their Vietnam War for this generation of reporters. They are seeing things “in the field” that only genocide and famine and war reporters have seen before.
I haven’t been able to bear even to attempt to watch FOX so I am surprised and heartened by what you say of them.
On the one hand, it seems kind of racist – the only thing that can really move these people is a tragedy like this close to home.
On the other, it seems completely reasonable. The administration’s doing its best to control the flow of information out of Iraq, to the point of attacking and arresting journalists. In this case, the anchors and talking heads are getting to see the carnage first-hand, without the Bush Reality Filter between them and the real world. And it’s not pretty, folks.
They are seeing things “in the field” that only genocide and famine and war reporters have seen before.
Tonight I heard Brian Williams talk about finding himself telling his colleagues “When we get back to the States”, and realizing that wait, he was already in the States. He said this is something he would expect to see in the Sudan or some other country, but not America.
Wow. “When we get back to the States.” Talk about a watershed moment. (I truly don’t intend that to be a pun.)
That’s the legacy that George W. Bush may be facing.
Think of his past — failed businesses, failed baseball team.
Then think of the disasters under his watch:
And that’s not even counting the disaster in international relations that our “we’re right, screw you” approach to the Middle East has brought about; I’m impressed with the response from the international community, when they’d be within their rights to tell us to go it alone.
[Note: while checking for the above link, I came across a blog that’s already referring to Bush as Hurricane Bush and Hurricane George]
that crash-landed in Chinese territory. Crew held captive for weeks. Couldn’t get the plane back for months, till they finally returned it in itty bitty pieces in a box after having thoroughly studied it.
Bush’s first foreign policy triumph.
The giant energy and financial frauds, still largely unpunished.
Yes, the straw…for the republicans’ back. But this isn’t a party matter. This is a human matter. Democrats alike.
You left out what I think was the most important thing Cafferty said and that was his talking about race and economic class.
Did anyone hear what he had to say later on the subject? He said threw it out there and then said they’d be talking about it later but I didn’t catch his “later” segment.
Hoover some relief. Bush will take his spot in history as the worst president the US has ever had.
The worst president the US ever had was Grant, and frankly, as bad as he is, Bush isn’t even close. On the other hand, New Orleans was better off during the so-called Reconstruction than it is now. And Grant is dead.
Warren Harding’s administration and personal life were both so scandal ridden that there are rumors his wife poisoned him.
And let’s not forget Millard Fillmore, who is known largely for not being known for anything.
But George Bush should end all debate. Worst. President. Ever.
We’ve raised a generation and a half never hearing positive discussion of government and what the people can do for themselves with government.
We’ve got an awful lot of people who cannot conceive of government being able to do anything useful. While the obvious hope is that society blames pilot error, there’s a real chance that these events confirm what people have heard over the 30-year propaganda job.
It wouldn’t hurt to hear from a strong Democrat, Real Soon Now.
Let’s call all of that “hard bigotry of low expectations”.
Yeah, Repubs proved that people should not expect anything good from their government. That does not mean that no government can do any good. We should ask for trust, otherwise we will never get it.
What I do know is that in less than 24 hours, a media punditry that spent the last four years insisting that they’re the only people who “love America” is now discussing how much they hate other Americans.
After a series of snowfalls dumped 5 feet on Chicago, Daley protege Michael Bilandic was blamed for inadequate plowing, and trounced in the next election by reformer Jane Byrne.
Corruption’s tolerated if you deliver. Bilandic and Bush failed. Game’s up.
The Italian strongman remained popular despite repression, because, as legend had it, “He made the trains run on time.”
George Bush, you’re no Mussolini.