Despite the fact that millions of cable news viewers witnessed the Bush Administration’s abysmal performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the White House political team will soon begin a full-court press to rewrite the reality of what happened – and what didn’t – in New Orleans last week.
One way they’ll try to turn public opinion around is by smearing the news coverage as being relentlessly negative – a product of liberal bias. But they may have a harder time deploying this tactic this time than they usually do because several of their most reliably Rovable pundits have themselves gone off the reservation this time.
On Friday, New York Times rightwing columnist David Brooks cracked up over his disillusionment with the president on the News Hour:
[It] is a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a river for five days in a major American city … [People] feel lousy; people feel ashamed and part of that is because of the public presentation. In part that is because of the failure of Bush to understand immediately the shame people felt … Sitting up there on the airplane and looking out the window was terrible. And the three days of doing nothing, really, on Bush was terrible. And even today, I found myself, as you know, I support his politics quite often … [This] is how Mark Shields must feel looking at him, I’m angry at the guy and maybe it will pass for me. But a lot of people and a lot of Republicans are furious right now.
Former Gingrichite congressman from Florida Joe Scarborough, who hosts an hourlong, O’Reilly-lite show on MSNBC, went off book , calling the situation in the Gulf Coast region “nothing short of a national disgrace.”
Even Bill O’Reilly wasn’t happy with the president’s performance, although he manages to swipe at the looters when he said this on Thursday: “The country expects the government to control law-breaking in the hurricane zone, to provide food and shelter, and to prevent any person or company from exploiting this desperate situation.”
As we reported previously, Tony Blankley expressed his disappointment that the patented Bush photo ops staged to make the aristorcratic popinjay look like a he-man hadn’t gotten underway sooner:
We expected to see, many hours ago, the president we saw standing atop the ruin of the World Trade Center, rallying a dazed country to action. We’re pleased he finally caught a ride home from his vacation, but he risks losing the one trait his critics have never dented: His ability to lead, and be seen leading.
Pat Buchanan, the former Republican presidential candidate, MSNBC pundit and editor of The American Conservative, wrote last week:
First, he was out of touch in Crawford, not alert to what was coming – and, indeed, photographed fooling with a guitar the day the storm hit. Second, despite the investment of scores of billions, the Gulf Coast, on his watch, was unprepared for a Category 4 hurricane.
Third, when the need arose for the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard to save the poor of those states, and defend lives and property after the storm, 7,000 Guardsmen were not on the Gulf of Mexico, but in the Persian Gulf.
Tim Russert, who has tossed nothing but softballs at the Bush officials for the past five years, grilled Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff this morning, which was good to see. At one point Russert demanded to know the secretary or anyone on his staff had plans to resign in the wake of their poor performance last week. Chertoff, a lawyer and a slick partisan, just changed the subject.
And Chris Matthews, who gets spittle-slinging mad anytime the Clintons are mentioned, has expressed outrage on his show.
Bush is just Cheney’s Dummy. Cheney is the ventriliquist. If Charlie McCarthy cursed on the radio, Edgar Bergen would have been responsible. Where is Cheney’s undisclosed location? Bush is just a Dummy, Cheney is the real culprit.
It’s pretty damn mild, and it ain’t gonna last.
Does anyone else think we’ll get one of those “OHMYGOD!!!!! THERE’S OSAMA BIN LADIN” distractions this week.
Maybe just long enough to provide cover for passage of the “Paris Hilton ACT” and the quick appointment of a couple of neocon neanderthals to the SCOTUS.
The Light is On Bu$h Now
It’s About Time…
NOW ACTION is Needed
NOW… TODAY
He Has been KILLING PEOPLE
in IRAQ 4 Years
AND NOW
The Bush Family, Friends, NeoCons
and All Who SUPPORT this GANGSTER gang…
R so out of it.. So – So – SO
OUT OF IT
People in AMERICA R NOW BEING KILLED by his
IN-ACTION-VACATIONING-MILLIONAIR-CLASS-KILLERS
.
IT IS TIME 2 / WE MUST / 4 the CHILD-RUN
.
IMPEACH and JAIL BUSH, CHENEY
and All That Support this…
EVIL
KILLER of PEOPLE and DEMOCRACY
.
Thank you, Roger Drowne EC
http://www.RogerART.com
Save A Life…
JAIL the BU$H GANGSTERS
.
I agree with Jerry with his take that Bush is the dummy and Cheney the ventriliquist. This has been all too evident when Cheney was running war games during 9/11 and Bush was reading “My Pet Goat.” As for conservative pundits speaking out, I am sick the false rhetoric. I want to see actions taken to call into account the worst presidency this country has ever known.
Let’s see whether they put on a happy face after the holidays, when people will start to pay attention to the news.
Was Katrina part of Intelligent Design?
C’mon, we all know Bush can’t do anything without a script and a pre-screened, sycophantic audience.
Fake food distribution centers. Ceremonial fly-overs. Sick.
We need to thank the UN and non-UN nations for their assistance and then BEG them to help us overthrow our own government before we go down into history as the meanest and most gullible people in the world.
Enjoy it while it lasts. I predict the main stream media will be up to its usual cover up for the frat-boy-want-to-play-war-time-preznit within a week.
Like many I’m concerned that the media will end up letting Bush off the hook again but I suspect that the backlash has only just begun. The reason is this, for all that what we’ve seen so far has been horrific, what’s coming will be worse. There are thousands of bodies waiting to be found in the flooded areas of NO. Once the city is drained and the full extend of the human cost of this tragedy becomes apparent the public outcry will only grow louder. Infact I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Bushies soon start talking about the need to “respect the dignity of the dead” as a pretext for surpressing pictures of the mounds of corpses their incompetence has generated.
I think that the prez brains are fried by all of the “fun he had in his younger days” snorting all of that cocaine……..and this “MASTER OF DISASTER” is the IDIOT in charge of “WE THE PEOPLE” GOD help us all
I am betting they start the trial of Saddam early as to take away from the disaster in the South. This administration is running out of diversions and desperately needs to divert the attention away from this pathetic group of incompetents we have in office.
What’s changed is that all the pretty-pretty boys and girls on television realize that Bush’s arrogance and incompetence can hurt them for a change. Though the administration had five days to prepare for Katrina they did nothing, and people like Tim “Pimp my Republican Talking Points” Russert now have to ask themselves what would happen if terrorists were to strike without giving any warning, as they tend to do.
The pundit class reacted the same way to the Rodney King riots in 1992 and were fearful for about a week. Then they realized that if the police and National Guard couldn’t save them from the mayhem they still could rely on the Army. This time, though, there seems to be no similar comfort available to them. They may be less inclined to forgive and forget Bush and his buddies for their criminal malfeasance, at least until they come to think that they probably would be able to scamper out of danger after all.
This turd won’t blossom. And the right-wing pundits can’t make it bloom either.
I assumed, wrongly, that Bush and Rove would take huge advantage of the hurricane as a convenient little diversion from other less heroic issues like the failures in Iraq and the Bush social security privatization fiasco. Bush’s nickname for Karl Rove is “Turd Blossom.” Presumably, Bush thinks that Rove can make even a turd blossom, even though this Rove nickname might not reflect well on George Bush himself. Regardless of this Rove reputation, in the case of Katrina, Rove has failed Bush utterly and the turds remain, simply, turds.
In a stunning and revealing article about the American press response to Katrina and the aftermath of failures, the BBC is explaining to the people of the world how the reality that is Bush’s Katrina-gate is giving spine to American journalists where there was none before. Right-wing pundits can’t swim in a sea of Bush criticism.
The depth of the problems for Bush and the Republican Congress is impossible to gauge at this point, but it very well could prove fatal in 2006. It certainly ought to prove fatal, given the magnitude of this failure.
If generals like Mike Chertoff (DHS) and Mike Brown (FEMA) were responsible for similar failures on the battlefield, any commander-in-chief worth his salt would have fired them on the spot. That these two buffoons continue to be in charge is a national disgrace.
Some right-wing pundits will try to blame all this on local officials and on all those people who didn’t follow orders and evacuate the way they were told to. We can’t let them get away with it.
why, has no one came forward to demand that the whole bunch thats incharge be arrested for murder this i cannot understang.
U have to know that the bush administration is slap happy katrina blew tru hell it takes the ppl’s attention away from turd blossom karl rove he must be as giddy as a school girl and dumb as a swamp stump,,,,,sorry to all the swamp stumps out there aint nothin against u
So in light of the fact that some repugs are even seeing the light, when do we take them down?
I hope all the people who voted for Bush the second time realize that they were unconscious.
How could they ever consider voting for a mediocre person to lead our nation. He is the so called education president and yet he displays that he is miseducated. Please America WAKE UP before this country and the world become bulldozed by these insane people.
Don’t worry–as coverage shifts from the
Gulf to the Supreme Court to estate-tax
repeal, right-wing progandists will revert
to their tedious, pro-fascist messaging.
I wonder if the media won’t be allowed to show the body bags? You know, national security and all…..
We finally saw unabashed raw emotion coming out of journalists and believe me it cut through the Soma that complacent taxpayers seem to ingest. Yesterday, I wore an Impeach Bush T-shirt and was stopped by several people who ask where to get one. America just may be awake now.
It’s about time the Fantasy News Team caught a glimmer. Too bad Thousands more people had to die. The Thugs can’t be allowed to pack the court the way they’ve pickled congress.
If you are through waiting to be rescued and want to do something about it, come to DC on the 24th 25th & 26th with about a million of your friends. It will NOT be business as usual.
GOPHater, I’m with you in substance but it aint just Republicans at the trough.
How much moeeere do we take.
As hard as this may be for many to accept, the ‘social conscience’ of america died way back in November of ’63…and on that day both parties agreed to play by a new set of rules. Your country has never been the same. South Africa had its ‘truth and reconciliation’ hearings to help it bury the ugly past that it could no longer hide from…your turn now. The ‘terrorists’ don’t hate your freedoms…they hate what republicans do with them. I don’t think the terrorists hate the US as much as the republicans seem to hate their own government and fellow citizens who don’t share their greedy, xenophobic view of the world. Remember: conservatives are, by nature, addicted to ‘easy answers to complex questions’…everything else is simply beyond them.
George Bush and his gang need to be IMPEACHED!!! These people are outright criminals!!! They are a complete embarrasment to this country and the entire world!! Hopefully more peolple will wake up to the fact that these people are truly evil to the bone!! It scares me to no end that this so called president and his adminisration are in control of this country, we should all be afraid for our lives!!
Wake up America! These right wingers are thieves and liars. They have used the ignorant to get into office and they intend to stay there as long as they can. They don’t care about us. They don’t care about America. They care only about money and power. They are heartless. What is it going to take for this country to become the U.S.A. once again?! It is up to us to take power away from them. We must rise. We must speak. We must ACT! It is within OUR powers as ‘THE PEOPLE’ to shed ourselves of this
disgusting greedy lot of traitors. Write letters to the senate, the house, the courts, local politicians, the white house and the media! Get involved. Demonstrate! (Cheney can’t stop ALL of us!) The 2006 elections are coming …. VOTE!
Well said, eo-christos. In veering off the path ever so slightly, have you noticed how conspicuously invisible Cheney has been lately? Here is a link to a U.K. article that offers speculation as to why:
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=3524
Any guesses as to when and where “they” may be planning to orchestrate another nation-paralyzing disaster?! Living in Jeb country, we should be relatively safe here.
People! Start your letter writing campaign!
Write your congressman EVERYDAY!
Demand congress Impeach Bush and Cheney!
How much more does this nation have to suffer before congress removes this incompetent criminal?