top
|
1. Williams Hits Bush with Dyson's Charge He's Uncaring 'Patrician' A night after NBC anchor Brian Williams featured, as his sole expert of the impact of race in the Katrina disaster, left-wing professor Michael Eric Dyson who charged that Barbara Bush's suggestion -- that many victims were better off in their new cities -- "reinforced the reputation of the Bushes as clueless patricians," Williams confronted President George W. Bush Tuesday with the insult, as if Dyson is some sort of authoritative figure. Williams hit Bush with this indictment: "A lot of Americans are always going to believe that that weekend, that week, you were watching something on television other than what they were seeing, and Professor Dyson from the University of Pennsylvania said on our broadcast last night it was because of your 'patrician' upbringing, that it's a class issue." Williams soon demanded to know if Bush has "any moments of doubt that we fought the wrong war?" When Bush replied that "the war came to our shores, remember that. We had a foreign policy that basically said let's hope calm works. And we were attacked," Williams gratuitously retorted: "But those weren't Iraqis." Williams also advocated a tax hike in the guise of a question: "The folks who say you should have asked for some sort of sacrifice from all of us after 9/11, do they have a case, looking back on it?" 2. Lauer: U.S. 'Achingly Divided by Race,' Pushes Katrina Conspiracy On Tuesday's Today, NBC's Matt Lauer opened by asserting that Katrina was responsible for "laying bare an America still achingly divided by race and class and battering the image of an administration." He soon asked New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to address the conspiracy theory that the levees were intentionally blown up to protect white neighborhoods at the expense of African-Americans. Reciting a question Brian Williams posed in his Monday night special, Lauer quizzed Nagin: "And finally the elephant in the room, if you will, Mr. Nagin. There are still people in the black community, many people, and Brian Williams touched on this in a special last night on NBC, who believe that the day after Katrina struck New Orleans the levees were breached intentionally. That they were blown, if you will, to flood black and poor neighborhoods to spare middle-class white neighborhoods. It would seem very difficult for New Orleans to move forward until that's directly addressed. What do you say about it?" 3. Bush Damned for Spending and for Not Spending Enough on Katrina One of Rush Limbaugh's many pet peeves with the "drive-by" media's coverage of Hurricane Katrina has been reporters nagging that the Bush administration wasn't doling out money fast enough only to turn around and then complain that much of money has been wasted in various scams. A prime example of this was NBC's Norah O'Donnell filling in for Chris Matthews on Monday night's Hardball. O'Donnell, determined to deny the administration any successes, asked the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson: "A year later and less than half of New Orleans residents have moved back. There have been, according to government watchdog groups, at least $2 billion in fraud and waste, scams, et cetera. Can Bush claim that there's any success in what's happened in the Gulf Coast in the past year?" 4. Oops! From Restroom, CNN Airs Anchor's Girltalk Over Bush Speech Looking for a "passionate, compassionate, great, great" man? Well, according to CNN midday anchor Kyra Phillips, they do indeed exist. During CNN's live coverage of President Bush's remarks from New Orleans, Phillips was unaware that her microphone was on and picked up portions of an apparent restroom conversation she was having with another woman. At 12:49pm EDT, those listening carefully could hear Phillips praise her husband: "Yeah, I'm very lucky in that regard with my husband. My husband is handsome and he is genuinely a loving, you know, no ego -- you know what I'm saying. Just a really passionate, compassionate great, great human being. And they exist. They do exist. They're hard to find. Yup. But they are out there." Phillips also inadvertently revealed how she feels about her sister-in-law: "Brothers have to be, you know, protective. Except for mine. I've got to be protective of him...Yeah. He's married, three kids, but his wife is just a control freak." Williams Hits Bush with Dyson's Charge He's Uncaring 'Patrician' A night after NBC anchor Brian Williams featured, as his sole expert of the impact of race in the Katrina disaster, left-wing professor Michael Eric Dyson who charged that Barbara Bush's suggestion -- that many victims were better off in their new cities -- "reinforced the reputation of the Bushes as clueless patricians," Williams confronted President George W. Bush Tuesday with the insult, as if Dyson is some sort of authoritative figure. Williams hit Bush with this indictment: "You have apologized for the damage, but what about the damage to your presidency? And, Mr. President, here's what I mean. Most of the analysts call it your low point. A lot of Americans are always going to believe that that weekend, that week, you were watching something on television other than what they were seeing, and Professor Dyson from the University of Pennsylvania said on our broadcast last night it was because of your 'patrician' upbringing, that it's a class issue." Williams soon demanded to know if Bush has "any moments of doubt that we fought the wrong war, that there's something wrong with the perception of America overseas?" When Bush replied that "the war came to our shores, remember that. We had a foreign policy that basically said let's hope calm works. And we were attacked," Williams gratuitously retorted: "But those weren't Iraqis." Williams also advocated a tax hike in the guise of a question: "The folks who say you should have asked for some sort of sacrifice from all of us after 9/11, do they have a case, looking back on it?" [This item was posted Tuesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] An August 29 CyberAlert item, "NBC Features Leftist on Katrina/Race: Bush 'Clueless Patrician,'" recounted how, on Monday's NBC Nightly News, Williams asked Dyson: "What was your reaction when Barbara Bush said they're really better off?" Dyson retorted: "Yeah, I'm a Christian minister man, so I always try to give love as the first response. But I'll tell you, when Barbara Bush said that, it reinforced the reputation of the Bushes as clueless patricians..."
For the full rundown of Williams' segment with Dyson: www.mediaresearch.org MSNBC's Hardball (hosted by Norah O'Donnell) led Tuesday night with Williams' Dyson "patrician" shot and Countdown with Keith Olbermann, but anchored by Allison Stewart, ran virtually all of what ran on the NBC Nightly News. The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript from near the top of the August 29 NBC Nightly News: Brian Williams: "President Bush was here today and again admitted that the government response fell short at all levels, in his words. He spoke at the city's oldest high school. He visited local music legend Fats Domino. He covered a lot of ground, and in the blazing mid-afternoon sun, he took time for a wide-ranging and exclusive conversation with us. And we started with the topic at hand: his handling of the disaster that started with the storm that came ashore here a year ago today."
Williams, to Bush: "You have apologized for the damage, but what about the damage to your presidency? And, Mr. President, here's what I mean. Most of the analysts call it your low point. A lot of Americans are always going to believe that that weekend, that week, you were watching something on television other than what they were seeing, and Professor Dyson from the University of Pennsylvania said on our broadcast last night it was because of your patrician upbringing, that it's a class issue."
Lauer: U.S. 'Achingly Divided by Race,' Pushes Katrina Conspiracy On Tuesday's Today, NBC's Matt Lauer opened by asserting that Katrina was responsible for "laying bare an America still achingly divided by race and class and battering the image of an administration." He soon asked New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to address the conspiracy theory that the levees were intentionally blown up to protect white neighborhoods at the expense of African-Americans. Reciting a question Brian Williams posed in his Monday night special, Lauer quizzed Nagin: "And finally the elephant in the room, if you will, Mr. Nagin. There are still people in the black community, many people, and Brian Williams touched on this in a special last night on NBC, who believe that the day after Katrina struck New Orleans the levees were breached intentionally. That they were blown, if you will, to flood black and poor neighborhoods to spare middle-class white neighborhoods. It would seem very difficult for New Orleans to move forward until that's directly addressed. What do you say about it?" Nagin responded that "we still have not found any evidence to support that," and that Katrina, "impacted white neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, Hispanic neighborhoods and Asian neighborhoods. So this is a storm that did not discriminate but if we find any evidence we'll follow up on it." Nagin didn't completely knock down the theory but what on Earth is a so-called responsible news network asking the question in the first place? It would be like Lauer asking the head of NASA if the moon landing was faked. [This item, by Geoff Dickens, was posted late Tuesday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters: newsbusters.org ]
Tuesday's Today was full of Katrina bias, beginning with Lauer's introduction at the top of the show: Lauer then portrayed the Michael Brown as the fall guy for the administration in numerous teases for the Brown segment. Lauer at the top of the show: "We'll also catch up with the person who became fairly or unfairly the poster boy for the administration's slow response to this disaster, former FEMA Director Michael Brown. He says he sounded the alarm but no one was listening." Lauer again at 7:22am: "And still to come on today the man who took the fall for the federal government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, former FEMA Director Michael Brown. We'll get his thoughts, one year later." Lauer repeatedly pushed Brown to blame the administration in his interview. The following is the full transcript of the segment in the 7:3oam half hour:
Matt Lauer: "And back now to more of our special coverage of Katrina: The Long Road Back. One year ago today FEMA Director Michael Brown was faced with a catastrophe of a lifetime when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. In a sound bite for the ages President Bush initially praised him for his work."
Bush Damned for Spending and for Not Spending Enough on Katrina One of Rush Limbaugh's many pet peeves with the "drive-by" media's coverage of Hurricane Katrina has been reporters nagging that the Bush administration wasn't doling out money fast enough only to turn around and then complain that much of money has been wasted in various scams. A prime example of this was NBC's Norah O'Donnell filling in for Chris Matthews on Monday night's Hardball. O'Donnell, determined to deny the administration any successes, asked the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson: "A year later and less than half of New Orleans residents have moved back. There have been, according to government watchdog groups, at least $2 billion in fraud and waste, scams, et cetera. Can Bush claim that there's any success in what's happened in the Gulf Coast in the past year?" [This item, by Geoff Dickens, was posted Tuesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] Later O'Donnell posed the question again to former FEMA Director Michael Brown: "One year later, less than half of the residents of New Orleans have moved back. Billions of dollars in waste, billions in some of the money that was handed out to people, used on all kinds of weird, disgusting things, if you will. Fraud, massive fraud, so not only was there a failure to help those in need at the beginning, but now we discover that there has been failure and fraud and scams, et cetera, for the past years in terms of doling out the money. What is going to be done about this? I know you are no longer in government, I know you're no longer in government, but you've been in there. What can possibly be done?" During the August 28 interview with Brown, O'Donnell also pressed the former director to repeatedly claim the administration asked him to lie:
O'Donnell: "You have recently given an interview to Playboy Magazine, in which you admitted that it was a mistake for you to play along with the White House message during Katrina and you said that, that message was a lie. What was the lie?"
Oops! From Restroom, CNN Airs Anchor's Girltalk Over Bush Speech Looking for a "passionate, compassionate, great, great" man? Well, according to CNN midday anchor Kyra Phillips, they do indeed exist. During CNN's live coverage of President Bush's remarks from New Orleans, Phillips was unaware that her microphone was on and picked up portions of an apparent restroom conversation she was having with another woman. At 12:49pm EDT, those listening carefully could hear Phillips praise her husband: "Yeah, I'm very lucky in that regard with my husband. My husband is handsome and he is genuinely a loving, you know, no ego -- you know what I'm saying. Just a really passionate, compassionate great, great human being. And they exist. They do exist. They're hard to find. Yup. But they are out there." Phillips also inadvertently revealed how she feels about her sister-in-law: "Brothers have to be, you know, protective. Except for mine. I've got to be protective of him...Yeah. He's married, three kids, but his wife is just a control freak." [The MRC's Megan McCormack on Tuesday afternoon posted on NewsBusters blog item on the incident, with audio/video which will be added to the CyberAlert version of this article. In the meantime, to watch the Real or Windows Media video, or to listen to the MP3 audio, go to: newsbusters.org ]
A Tuesday evening Hollywood Reporter dispatch distributed by Reuters, "CNN sorry for Bush speech gaffe," recounted: For the story in full: news.yahoo.com The audio of Phillips' conversation could be heard overriding President Bush's remarks approximately ten minutes into the President's speech. While the President could be heard during the exchange, Phillips's gaffe was very distracting:
"Assholes. Yeah, I'm very lucky in that regard with my husband. My husband is handsome and he is genuinely a loving, you know, no ego. [unintelligible] you know what I'm saying. Just a really passionate, compassionate great, great human being. And they exist. They do exist. They're hard to find. Yup. But they are out there." Seconds later, Daryn Kagan stumbled through this awkward transition: "Alright, we've been listening in to President Bush as he speaks in, uh, New Orleans today. This is the one year anniversary of Katrina making land shore there. President Bush saying if another natural disaster hits, our country. We must, uh, react better than that. Let's listen in once again to President Bush."
-- Brent Baker
Home | News Division
| Bozell Columns | CyberAlerts |
|