A Tempest in the Mainstream Media’s Teapot
By Randall Nunn (03/05/06)
One thing has been learned as a result of Hurricane Katrina—conservative Republican presidents are expected to know the path, wind speed and destructive effects of hurricanes before they strike. It doesn’t matter that meteorologists and super computers make incorrect weather predictions almost daily. What matters is the failure of President Bush to warn a group of state and local officials of something no mortal could have known for certain in advance of its happening. And something that every mortal should have known was a possibility under the right set of circumstances. The only people falling for the Katrina nonsense being peddled by the mainstream media are those who don’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain to begin with.
Those who had the primary responsibility to prepare for Hurricane Katrina were the state and local governments in the target areas. The fact is that the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana failed to effectively prepare for the hurricane before it hit and failed even more miserably to react effectively when it came ashore. Since those officials are liberal Democrats, they obviously could not have been at fault. It must have been the Bush administration that let all these people think they were safe from catastrophic flooding because no one was there from Washington with a bullhorn telling them the obvious—a Category 5 hurricane is dangerous, unpredictable and capable of destroying life and property, particularly in a city like New Orleans, some of which lies below sea level.
The mainstream media has added a new weapon to its propaganda arsenal. The “Big Lie” technique is now supplemented with the “Goofy Lie”. Making the argument that the devastation of Katrina was worse because President Bush “systematically misled the American people” about Hurricane Katrina is simply goofy. But if you dress the lie up a bit and put it on the front page of “respectable” newspapers and on network broadcasts, it takes on some credibility to many people. Sadly, the people who wait for the mainstream media to tell them what they should think about the issues of the day are the same people who wait for the government to tell them that they should take cover from one of the most powerful and dangerous forces of nature.
Now—after days of relentless and misleading attacks on President Bush—we learn that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said in a briefing to federal officials on the day the hurricane came ashore that the levee had not been breached at that time. In fact, it had been breached three hours earlier. The highest official in the state, with primary responsibility for the safety of the citizens of the state, makes an incorrect statement to federal officials of a critical fact, and still the mainstream media blames President Bush. Even worse, some in the media claimed that President Bush lied when he said he wasn’t warned that the levees could be breached during Hurricane Katrina. It now turns out that the National Hurricane Center Director told the president that “I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that’s obviously a very, very grave concern.” Surely the mainstream media understands the difference between a levee being “topped” and the walls of a levee being “breached.” And certainly the mainstream media’s crack army of professional reporters could have obtained a copy of the videotapes with these statements (by Governor Blanco and the National Hurricane Center Director). If they did not, they were negligent in doing their jobs and maliciously reckless in their reporting. If they did, then their vicious attacks on President Bush are even more reprehensible because they evidence bias, deception and evil intent by what is supposed to be one of the bulwarks of a free nation—the press.
What makes much of this attack on President Bush nothing short of “goofy” is the fact that even if someone told President Bush a day or six hours before Katrina struck that it was possible that the levees could be “breached” (not just “topped”), nothing could have been done to prevent such a breach. And with the poor planning and ineffective actions by Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin before Katrina struck, little could have been done except to react to events as they unfolded.
When the Director of the National Hurricane Center tells the president that no computer model could predict “with any confidence” whether the levees would be topped, what is the basis for accusing President Bush of lying and blaming him for Katrina’s destruction. There simply is no valid basis for such attacks.
At some point, the American people are going to understand the magnitude of the mainstream media’s bias and the lengths to which it will go to try to defeat this administration. And when they realize that the mainstream media is not serving as a watchdog for the public interest but as an attack dog for their own selfish political interests, they will stop buying newspapers and magazines and turn off the network news shows in greater numbers than they are now doing. Blaming a president for not warning of the precise effects of a natural disaster is the height of absurdity and arrogance. The mainstream media has turned an “act of God” into a “failure of the federal government.”
Copyright 2006 Randall H. Nunn
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