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1. Olbermann Delivers Anti-Bush Diatribe Pegged to Chertoff Slip Olbermann's arrogant hypocrisy. On Tuesday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann misidentified Tom DeLay as the House "Minority" Leader, an error for which he soon conceded that "I'd like to give you a good explanation for it, but there wasn't one. I just kicked it." But the night before, Olbermann had launched a five-minute diatribe which pegged great meaning to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's miscue that "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater." Olbermann thundered: "Well, there's your problem right there. If ever a slip of the tongue defined a government's response to a crisis." Olbermann soon provided ridicule: "Anybody seen the Vice President lately, the man whose message this time last year was 'I will protect you, the other guy might let you die'? I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant. For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been, as we were taught in social studies it should always be, whether or not I voted for this President, he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week." Olbermann also suggested Bush looked "like a 21st century Marie Antoinette." 2. ABC Reporter Pushes Jackson to Say Racism Behind Stranding People Another instance Tuesday morning of a mainstream media journalist getting ahead the race-hustlers, prodding a reluctant interviewee to blame racism for the delayed rescues in New Orleans. During a "town meeting" on ABC's Good Morning America, Ron Claiborne reminded Jesse Jackson of how he was quoted "as saying the image that's coming out of New Orleans resembled 'the hull of a slave ship.' That is very vivid and charged language. What were you saying, what were you implying?" Claiborne pressed Jackson: "Do you believe the response was slow and or inadequate because, because the overwhelming majority of those people inside New Orleans were stranded are African-American?" Jackson pushed back: "I really would not want to make that case." 3. Newsweek Reporter: "Just as We Saw Bush Flitting Around" on 9/11 An example of the editing process masking the hard-edged agenda of a reporter? Live on MSNBC on Monday afternoon, Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras resurrected the 9/11 shots at Bush as he rued how "President Bush, for yet another time, once again showed a lack of instant immediate leadership. Just as we saw him flitting around the country during those initial eleven hours after the attacks on the Twin Towers, we saw him once again at his ranch in Crawford." But the Newsweek magazine story by Evan Thomas, on which Contreras is listed as a reporter, managed to avoid such incendiary verbiage even as it made the same basic charge about Bush: "He is sometimes slow to react, and he may have been lulled by early reports that New Orleans had been spared the worst of the storm. These are all legitimate excuses. Still, we expect more from a President." 4. Expanding Blame, NBC & ABC Look at Local Government Culpability Some early signs on Tuesday that the media may expand the scope of blame beyond President Bush and FEMA. Lisa Myers, in a story on "missed opportunities," gave broadcast network air time to showing some of the hundreds of flooded school buses the city government abandoned: "Some two hundred New Orleans school buses sit underwater, unused, enough to have evacuated 13,000 people. Why weren't those buses sent street by street to pick up people before the storm?" Over on ABC Tuesday night, Dan Harris centered a story around how "experts say when natural disasters hit, it is the primary responsibility of state and local governments, not the federal government, to respond." 5. Jon Stewart: "Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's Monica Lewinsky" After a week off, Jon Stewart opened his Daily Show on Comedy Central Tuesday night with a very serious lecture about the federal government's failures in the hurricane disaster. Without addressing the bias point that the media framework has held Bush and FEMA accountable to the exclusion of local officials, he scolded those who claim the "left-wing media is being too hard" on Bush: "No. Shut up. No. This is inarguably, inarguably a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government." Stewart's presentation culminated with a laugh line, "Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's Monica Lewinsky. One difference, and I'll say this, the only difference is this: That tens of thousands of people weren't stranded in Monica Lewinsky's vagina. That is the only difference." Olbermann Delivers Anti-Bush Diatribe Pegged to Chertoff Slip Olbermann's arrogant hypocrisy. On Tuesday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann misidentified Tom DeLay as the House "Minority" Leader, an error for which he soon conceded that "I'd like to give you a good explanation for it, but there wasn't one. I just kicked it." But the night before, Olbermann had launched a five-minute diatribe which pegged great meaning to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's miscue that "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater." Olbermann thundered: "Well, there's your problem right there. If ever a slip of the tongue defined a government's response to a crisis." Olbermann soon provided ridicule: "Anybody seen the Vice President lately, the man whose message this time last year was 'I will protect you, the other guy might let you die'? I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant. For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been, as we were taught in social studies it should always be, whether or not I voted for this President, he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week." Olbermann also suggested Bush looked "like a 21st century Marie Antoinette." During an interview of former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerick on the September 6 Countdown, Olbermann queried: "I have to ask you, before we go, a big picture question on the overall emergency response. The House Minority Leader, Mr. DeLay, said today that disaster response is, quote here, 'designed from the ground up,' the implication of that being that whatever the shortcomings of the last week have been, the responsibility began in New Orleans. Do you, with your expertise in this area, agree with that?" Returning from a subsequent ad break, Olbermann acknowledged his error: "Let me correct and apologize for the verbal typo in the last segment. Tom DeLay is, of course, the House Majority Leader, not the Minority Leader. I'd like to give you a good explanation for it, but there wasn't one. I just kicked it."
He wasn't so forgiving with Chertoff on Monday night. He teased his September 5 program: "And what did the administration know, and when did it know it? The Director of the National Hurricane Center says he warned them -- the head of FEMA, the head of Homeland Security -- that the levees could break. And that head of Homeland Security, did he sum up how well the government handled the crisis with eight words?" At about 8:40pm EDT, Olbermann unleashed his vitriol, as checked against the video by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth:
Olbermann undermined himself by beginning with the claim that he normally avoids commentary: "This is not typically a newscast of commentary. I can recall only twice previously offering such perspectives. But something that Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff said at his news conference Saturday made this necessary."
ABC Reporter Pushes Jackson to Say Racism Behind Stranding People Another instance Tuesday morning of a mainstream media journalist getting ahead the race-hustlers, prodding a reluctant interviewee to blame racism for the delayed rescues in New Orleans. During a "town meeting" on ABC's Good Morning America, Ron Claiborne reminded Jesse Jackson of how he was quoted "as saying the image that's coming out of New Orleans resembled 'the hull of a slave ship.' That is very vivid and charged language. What were you saying, what were you implying?" Claiborne pressed Jackson: "Do you believe the response was slow and or inadequate because, because the overwhelming majority of those people inside New Orleans were stranded are African-American?" Jackson pushed back: "I really would not want to make that case."
The September 6 CyberAlert had recounted: CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Friday afternoon repeatedly prodded reluctant Congressional Black Caucus member Elijah Cummings to blame racism for delays in rescuing hurricane victims in New Orleans. When Cummings demurred from such a blanket accusation, Blitzer wouldn't give up: "There are some critics who are saying, and I don't know if you're among those, but people have said to me, had this happened in a predominantly white community, the federal government would have responded much more quickly. Do you believe that?" Later, on CNN's NewsNight, Aaron Brown took up the same agenda with Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, lecturing her: "Now, look, here's the question, okay? And then we'll end this. Do you think the reason that they're not there or the food is not there or the cruise ships aren't there or all this stuff that you believe should be there, isn't this a matter of race and/or class?" See: www.mediaresearch.org Diane Sawyer set up the segment: "As we said earlier, questions about the role of poverty and even race in what happened down here have arisen. And they have provoked a range of responses from fair, unfair, provocative to absolutely ridiculous. But we thought we'd explore some of these sides of the issue. And Ron Claiborne has some guests. Ron."
Claiborne introduced a taped piece: "That's right, Diane. Anyone watching the images, watching the television coverage of the crisis there in New Orleans can not help but notice that of the people stranded in New Orleans after the hurricane struck, the overwhelming percentage of them were African-American. We talked to some people all around the country and in this area, black and white, and asked them if they believe there is in fact a racial aspect to this crisis."
Back live, Claiborne segued to Jackson standing beside him: "Joining me right now is Reverend Jesse Jackson. Can I get you to stand, Reverend Jackson? You were quoted, perhaps misquoted, as saying the image that's coming out of New Orleans resembled 'the hull of a slave ship.' That is very vivid and charged language. What were you saying, what were you implying?"
Newsweek Reporter: "Just as We Saw Bush Flitting Around" on 9/11 An example of the editing process masking the hard-edged agenda of a reporter? Live on MSNBC on Monday afternoon, Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras resurrected the 9/11 shots at Bush as he rued how "President Bush, for yet another time, once again showed a lack of instant immediate leadership. Just as we saw him flitting around the country during those initial eleven hours after the attacks on the Twin Towers, we saw him once again at his ranch in Crawford." But the Newsweek magazine story by Evan Thomas, on which Contreras is listed as a reporter, managed to avoid such incendiary verbiage even as it made the same basic charge about Bush: "He is sometimes slow to react, and he may have been lulled by early reports that New Orleans had been spared the worst of the storm. These are all legitimate excuses. Still, we expect more from a President." A little past noon EDT on Monday, mostly over live helicopter video of the flooding (but with some brief shots of Contreras in a TV studio), Contreras appeared on MSNBC to discuss Newsweek's cover story on the disaster.
Host Natalie Allen asked him: "You know, everyone is talking about the disaster relief and why it came so slow. This is an agency that, you know, we think it's going to be able to respond to a possible major terrorist attack. What is your take on the federal response?"
In the September 12 cover story, "The Lost City; What Went Wrong: Devastating a swath of the South, Katrina plunged New Orleans into agony. The story of a storm -- and a disastrously slow rescue," delivered a milder version of the rebuke: The "byline" for the lengthy article: "This story was written by Evan Thomas with reporting from T. Trent Gegax in Baton Rouge; Jonathan Darman with the National Guard; Catharine Skipp and Joseph Contreras in New Orleans; John Barry, Pat Wingert, Martha Brant, Daniel Klaidman, Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff, Holly Bailey, Susannah Meadows and Steve Tuttle in Washington; Carol Rust and Staci Semrad in Texas, and Andrew Murr and Jessica Silver-Greenberg." The above-quoted portion of the article is posted at: www.msnbc.msn.com
Expanding Blame, NBC & ABC Look at Local Government Culpability Some early signs on Tuesday that the media may expand the scope of blame beyond President Bush and FEMA. Lisa Myers, in a story on "missed opportunities," gave broadcast network air time to showing some of the hundreds of flooded school buses the city government abandoned: "Some two hundred New Orleans school buses sit underwater, unused, enough to have evacuated 13,000 people. Why weren't those buses sent street by street to pick up people before the storm?" Over on ABC Tuesday night, Dan Harris centered a story around how "experts say when natural disasters hit, it is the primary responsibility of state and local governments, not the federal government, to respond." Earlier, on Sunday's Today, Campbell Brown had hit New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin: "Mr. Mayor, you must know that there are people in this city who would not have had the means to evacuate for a hurricane like this. It is a poor city in many ways, what was your plan for getting people like that out before Katrina?"
Myers, in a story which also aired on MSNBC's Countdown, began her "missed opportunities" story, on the September 6 NBC Nightly News, with a local government fiasco: "Some 200 New Orleans school buses sit underwater, unused, enough to have evacuated 13,000 people. Why weren't those buses sent street by street to pick up people before the storm?" Myers didn't address the lack of use of the city's regular transit buses before she moved on to looking at what caused delays in the arrival of the armed forces. To comment on the Myers story, and for a picture of the flooded buses, check this node on the MRC's NewsBusters.org blog: newsbusters.org World News Tonight anchor Bob Woodruff in New Orleans set up the Dan Harris story, which the MRC's Brad Wilmouth brought to my attention. Woodruff: "Here in New Orleans today, the Mayor said he's starting to see rays of light. The water is receding, but the Army Corps of Engineers said today that it will take between 24 and 80 days before the city is completely drained. Hurricane Katrina was the first real test since 9/11 of this nation's ability to respond to catastrophes like this. But no one in this town needs reminding that it just didn't work out the way it was supposed to. And there's plenty of blame to go around. ABC's Dan Harris tonight takes 'A Closer Look.'"
Unidentified man walking in the flood: "Where's George Bush?"
Jon Stewart: "Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's Monica Lewinsky" After a week off, Jon Stewart opened his Daily Show on Comedy Central Tuesday night with a very serious lecture about the federal government's failures in the hurricane disaster. Without addressing the bias point that the media framework has held Bush and FEMA accountable to the exclusion of local officials, he scolded those who claim the "left-wing media is being too hard" on Bush: "No. Shut up. No. This is inarguably, inarguably a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government." Stewart's presentation culminated with a laugh line, "Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's Monica Lewinsky. One difference, and I'll say this, the only difference is this: That tens of thousands of people weren't stranded in Monica Lewinsky's vagina. That is the only difference."
The MRC's Brian Boyd transcribed for me a portion of Stewart's opening remarks at the start of his September 5 show: Comedy Central's page for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: www.comedycentral.com
-- Brent Baker
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