More on Katrina
By Ben Stein, The American Spectator
Amidst all the politico fingerpointing, one truth is transparent... the "anti Cowboy Prez crowd" feel no shame in using Katrina's devastation as another arrow in their "hate Bush" quivers.
Ben Stein has his own criticisms. However he differs by placing the responsibility of the hype-to-hysteria-and-hate squarely on the shoulders of those who should bear it.... the media themselves.
What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.
They used the storm and its attendant sorrows to continue their endless attack on George W. Bush. Wildly inflated stories about the number of dead and missing, totally made up old wives' tales of racism, breathless accounts of Bush's neglect that are utterly devoid of truth and of historical context -- this is what the mainstream media gave us. The use of floating corpses, of horror stories of plagues, the sad faces of refugees, the long-faced phony accusations of intentional neglect and racism -- anything is grist for the media's endless attempts to undermine the electorate's choice last November. It is sad, but true that the media will use even the most heart breaking truths -- and then add total inventions -- to try to weaken and then evict from office a man who has done nothing wrong, but has instead turned himself inside out to help the real victims.
There can be no doubt that officials at all levels either performed poorly, not at all, or not up to snuff in the wake of the levee flooding. And while the elected elite take their time sniffing out the self-inflicted paperweights in the bureaucratic red tape, what is more breathtaking is the performance of the majority of American citizens themselves. I speak of the citizenry that realize that the quickest and best "first responder" to their plight is themselves and their neighbors. Highest kudos must go to those that ignored the red tape and just did what needed to be done to survive.
The blame game that infests our Congress and elected officials at all levels only serves to inflate their notions that we are all children that require care from government. And while government assistance is vital, our mentality can not afford to assume government is our mainstay in the event of disasters such as Katrina, 9:11, or whatever befalls us in the future.
What Katrina has ultimately revealed is that the MSM has less connection to the American citizen than to the Washington beltway. News thru their eyes is not news, but campaign strategy. And to watch them in action over this past couple of weeks has sickened me - their blanket doom and gloom, and their lack of perspective. They assumed what they see in their tiny world is exactly the same in all affected areas, and it's all the government's fault that it is not instantly cured.
Perhaps the most horrendous of all is their lack of education on exactly how FEMA and emergency plans are put into action in the bureaucratic world. While they may have believed they were "helping" by lashing out with criticism, all they truly accomplished was making an already chaotic situation more riddled with hate and tension. It's so easy to toss out the barbs and rile up an already heartbroken nation, but one must wonder if they could do any better under the bureaucratic red tape put into place by members of Congress.
My "let's see you do it better" attitude is echoed by Dennis Byrne in today's Chicago Tribune.
The "critics" obviously could have done it better, so the new emergency management czar would be Ted Koppel, the ABC News "Nightline" anchor. His questioning of FEMA director Michael Brown indicated that Koppel believed that any buffoon could have done a better job. Being any buffoon, Koppel is perfect.
[Jesse] Jackson would run relief logistics, because of his impressive ability to transport himself to any place on planet Earth where a camera is rolling. Newsweek contributing editor and talk-show mouth Eleanor Clift would single-handedly pilot a helicopter on rescue missions. Kicking on the automatic pilot, she'd lower herself in a harness to personally rescue thousands of rooftop survivors and fly them back to a rescue area, which she already had previously prepared with all necessary medical provisions, food, water and a big party. She can do this because she knows everything.
CNN's Anderson Cooper, who was praised for abandoning his professional role as a journalist to "advocate for the poor and dying" because he had seen a dead body, would get a special job befitting his concerns: body collector.
"CBS News Sunday Morning" contributor Nancy Giles would be put in charge of triage, deciding who is cared for first. She had said that if the hardest hit victims had been white, they wouldn't have gone for days without food and water, and they would have been "rescued and relocated a hell of a lot faster than this. Period." With Giles in charge, we could rest assured that no white person, no matter how serious her plight, would receive care before any black person.
There'd also be jobs for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and columnist Molly Ivins, who want to boot out Bush crony Brown because he mucked up his job. Durbin, and others of his mindset, would be mucking up their boots at the front, personally leading the tens of thousands of medical-aid workers, military troops, rescuers, truck drivers, logistics specialists and other key personnel that they had funded and staged at any (i.e. every) American city that is "at risk" of some natural catastrophe or man-made attack. No sweat. The planning already has been done by 1950s fantasizers who believed they could protect the populace from nuclear attack by stuffing Americans into air raid shelters sufficiently stocked with food, water, clothing and reruns of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."
By the way, after his criticism of Brown, Durbin might advise his pal Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to stop appointing or giving contracts to cronies because look what happened when President Bush did it.
Amen, Dennis. Well said.
Last, and certainly not least of the articles more than annoyed with sensationalist reporters is Jack Kelly's "No Shame..." column in Pittsburgh's Sunday Post-Gazette. Mr. Kelly took the high road and researched facts - an innovative approach with today's media - with an experienced first responder from Florida's National Guard. His responses contrast starkly with the sundry "worst response" accusations permeating the media air and print waves.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
(snip)
A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:
"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.
"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.
"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."
"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.
Truth from those who've been there, done that. But of course truth doesn't sell papers, airwave ad time, nor topple sitting presidents. Therefore, to a corrupt and irresponsible MSM, truth is nothing but an option.
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