by Col. W. Patrick Lang (Ret.)
Interesting stuff on CNN yesterday morning.
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Miles O’Brien had a good time beating up the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin. The diatribe featured lots of hostile accusation of “turf defense,” poor planning, vacillation, etc. Nagin tried to tell O’Brien that the city must be revived and that people want to go home but that he had directed a halt to the return because of the oncoming storm. Rita. This was to no avail. The attack went on.
O’Brien then brought on James Carville and tried the same thing out on him. He must have been surprised to hear Carville say that the people of new Orleans want to see their elected mayor in charge. He then said something probably unintelligible in the corporate offices of CNN. He reminded O’Brien of MG Ben Butler, the Union military governor of New Orleans in the Civil War. How surprising!!
Carol Costello, who once remarked that she had been interested to learn that Costello was sometimes an Irish name, had an even better time working over the Mayor of Gretna, Louisiana. He tried to tell her that his decision to block the bridge to New Orleans was a public safety decision but she insisted that there was more to it than that, Gotcha!! Costello then interviewed Aaron Broussard, the president of Jefferson Parish as to his reaction to what was going on. Broussard stated his support for Mayor Nagin. Then, later in the interview, he said what he believed to be the necessary requirements for life in the area as it is re-occupied.
An hour later CNN replayed his interview and edited out his support for Nagin.
Costello then went on to interview one Clancy Dubose (phonetic) in Baton Rouge. Clancy is a columnist of some kind. She attempted to elicit a denunciation of Mayor Nagin from this man who resisted manfully in spite of her repeated interruptions and attempts to redirect his comments. At last he finally said that “maybe the feds should take over.” With visible relief, Costello said “Well, they are trying to do so but the Mayor insists that it is his city….” Mission Accomplished.
What’s going on here? Could it be that CNN is responding to “thematic” guidance at the corporate level? What would the theme be? Would it be that the incompetence and immorality of local government in Louisiana should cause the American people to demand federal control there?
Sorta like Bush v. Gore.
No… exactly like Bush v. Gore.
Yup Tucker Carson just compared Texas to Nola and made a point of saying that the State and local govt had failed in evacuating people..and how State and local gov’twere doing a great job in Texas
The federal government is being privatized.
Remember this story I wrote based on Osha Davidson’s Rolling Stone article:
ONE WAY to KILL an agency is by making it ineffective, and forcing state and local officials to pick up the tab, the responsibility, and the longterm damage control, rebuilding, etc., etc.
I could be stretching things a bit here, but what the hell …
I agree no organization can be that ineffective… but now this is Texas… so to all those who said if the rescue would be different if the majority were white… well turn on the TV
I meant Anderson Cooper…yeah he did a complet 360 since Katrina…
Takes place. This is currently on Newsday‘s main page:
Just because people are trying to get out of town and away from the coast doesn’t mean they’ll be able to get far enough away to be out of danger. It sounds as if enormous numbers of people may still be at risk.
God help them.
Yes, this was one thing Louisiana did get right: development of contraflow, which alters the flow of traffic so that the entire interstate is devoted to evacuation.
I’m trying to remember what Al Franken was saying this morning…
Franken, I think, was inferring that Bush had told Nagin to go ahead and invite people back in to NOLA. Then the admiral spoke up. Then Bush spoke up — a CYA kind of thing. Then Nagin had to use Rita as an excuse to end the return.
Hugh Kaufman, a senior EPA policy analyst in the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, was on Al’s show this morning, and said that it was a very bad idea to let people return. The pollution makes it too dangerous.
Kaufman also said he’s shocked that everyone isn’t wearing protective air masks. And he was very concerned that many clean-up workers aren’t wearing much, if any, protective gear, let alone face masks … he thinks they’re people hired at below-minimum-wage pay by the private contractors cashing in on the huge clean-up effort.
(Here’s more about Kaufman from an e-mail I got today: Bush GreenWatch.org — article: “CRITICS SAY EPA WITHHOLDING INFORMATION ON NEW ORLEANS CONTAMINATION.”)
The morning CNN talking heads may be pushing that meme but I haven’t seen it that heavy from Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper. Like I’ve said before, O’Brien needs to stick to covering NASA.
The problem is there are too many “cooks in the kitchen” imho. Of course the Bushco is going to do everything it can to assist Texas(yet giving credit to the state) in getting people out and making sure all the proper backup is in place. That way they can say they “learned” from the mistakes of Katrina and make Nagin/Blanco look bad and keep the blame on the local/state level. Typical bullshit if you ask me.
I missed the interveiws on CNN. Saw Hannity the other night try to get the Adm. of the Coast Guard in NO to bad mouth Nagin and to the ADM credit he wouldn’t take the bait. Hannity went so far as to interupt(imagine that)and say Nagin should be fired immediatley and that the Pres. forced Nagin to change his mind about folks reentering NO. Adm. said no that wasn’t true. I thought Hannity was going to have a cow. Guess the ADM. isn’t on the payroll huh?
Good for the Admiral! Hannity is such a waste of DNA.
I new the scum in the administration would get revenge on Nagin. His outburst on television (I need 500 buses) made him prime target #1. These people in the Whitehouse don’t like to be criticized. They are far more concerned with the appearance of being competent and in control then actually being competent and in control.
That’s is exactly what they are going to do and from the posts here it looks like the talking points have already been distributed to the troops. They’ll go to their graves with their index fingers extended and still pointing. Tell you what the people of N.O. can decide on Nagin. I’ve already made my decision on Bush and company their incompetent and out of control.
by failing to implement the city’s evacuation plan and get the poor evacuated, not to mention those in nursing homes. Blanco should have insisted, but she didn’t.
He gave “them” amunition, and now we have to live with it. Implementing the city’s evacuation plans could have saved hundreds of lives.
Also, Blanco and Nagin, might as well throw Landrieu and Vitter in there, haven’t said bo peep about the roll back of Davis-Bacon, and the shape that reconstruction is taking: Karl Rove, no-bid contracts, and Halliburton, Bechtel and Fluor already with millions in no bid for cleanup work.
Our people can now be paid lower than the prevailing wage for clean-up work, and let me tell you, they are angry. I’ve heard them at the river center.
I’m angry and disappointed in our politicians. How are y’all feeling about the ones back home?
I’m angry and disappointed in our politicians. How are y’all feeling about the ones back home?
We’ve the same problem here in WA. The state is infested with DLC pols, most of whom aren’t effective or even responsive. And this is in a state with a huge chunk of genuine liberals in the electorate. (The WA state operatives tend to view us as naive and stupid.) Enough to force the state to raise the minimum wage and index the sucker to inflation through the initiative process. We have one of the most regressive tax structures in the nation with the lowest income strata paying in the neighborhood of 19% of their income in sales taxes. They ask us to raise tobacco taxes to provide health care for the poor and the next year cut health care for the poor.
It appears to me that the GOP and DLC democrats have lost touch with an essential political truth which is that policies which kill the voters and their children are extremely unpopular.
I cannot say how unenthused I am about protecting the careers of any of the Democrats involved in this fiasco. The whole lot of them are an embarrassment.
I just heard MSNBC tell us that the prez was getting regular updates on Rita, and besides being deeply concerned about everyone’s safety, george is determined that this time there will be no doubt as to who is in charge. Oh boy – It’s gonna be a rough weekend.