Posted on 03/03/2006 11:28:54 AM PST by MikeA
This week's Associated Press reporting on the leaked Katrina briefing tapes contains a seemingly minor but actually quite significant factual error and subsequent hit job on President Bush. The reporting buried among sturdier assertions the claim that Mr. Bush was warned about possible breaches of the levees on Aug. 28-29, right before and during Hurricane Katrina's onslaught on the Gulf Coast. In reality, he was warned about many potential problems on these tapes -- but levee breaches weren't among them. The AP reported this as though it were fact, and then uncritically quoted Democratic partisans who were only too happy to parrot it. As the tapes show, the president was warned extensively about storm surges, water topping over the levees, flooding in addition to storm surges and the possibility of significant losses of life across the Gulf Coast. Clearly, warning signs were in place for a major disaster. "I'm sure it will be in the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done after the post-analysis," said the half-prescient National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. But breaches? There was only one mention of breaches -- which Mr. Mayfield raised briefly in a confused-sounding sentence only to dismiss the possibility. "Louisiana can talk a little bit more about this than I can, but it looks like the Federal levees around the City of New Orleans will not have been [incomprehensible] any breaches to," he said on Aug. 29. The previous day, Mr. Mayfield had actually dismissed the possibility of major flooding in New Orleans. "[T]he forecast we have now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself," he said. Storm surges were the overwhelming preoccupation. "The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levees?"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
But then the Katrina coverage has been a lie all along. Initially this videotape was provided to the AP on August 28th. But when it didn't fit their script of "Bush blew it!" they deep sixed the tape because it actually showed an engaged and active president working hard to prepare for the storm.
But now 6 months later the media sees election year value in this videotape in using it to say things it does not say to contradict things Bush never claimed, i.e. Bush's statement about no one anticipating levee breeches BEFORE the storm which is not what Bush said. Rather he was referring to the aftermath of the storm when it appeared in the first 18 hours or so after Katrina went through that the levees would hold. All indications at the time was NO had escaped the worst. Even Blanco assured the president the levees were okay. Bush was not referring to any pre-storm planning when he made that remark.
So the AP has managed to take a videotape that would have exhonerated Brown and Bush back in August, to turn it into something that makes them look bad now by lying about its contents. These scumbags are amazingly shameless.
Apologies? A retraction?
I remember the meetings before hand. I remember the President begging the Governor to evacuate the city. I remember the Governor preventing the supplies from getting into the city. I remember it all.
Exactly why the black talble phone media is dying.
Lying bastards are as lying bastards does.
I noticed on H&C last night they were interchanging the terms "breach" and "top".
Those are two entirely different things. Notice all the warnings are about levee toppings due to storm surge and flood damage that may occur. Nothing really new to New Orleans. Breeches were not expected.
Good editorial! Thanks for posting.
The good ol' Washington Times is really on top of this.
This morning, a Louisiana television station ran a story saying there was a video or audio of Blanco telling Bush that the levees were holding, several hours AFTER Bush had been told that they were failing by NOAA. So apparently, Bush believed what Blanco had told him since she was supposed to be on site of the disaster.
IMHO, I think it is time to hold the MSM more accountable for their errors, inaccuracies, and omissions (read lies) more so than simple apologies or retractions...
It is obvious that they won't police 'truth in reporting' from within.
That is why we have the non-MSM media. Thank you Free Republic! I wouldn't have found out about this lie without FR. Might have been mentioned on Fox News. Maybe.
"Isn't it interesting how the media and the Dems. seem to be working tag team in attacking the president?"
How? How are they doing it? They don't 'seem' to be working tag team, they ARE working tag team. I'm not one easily given to 'conspiracy' theories. But I've been saying for some time now that I believe these relentless attacks are being carefully planned and orchestrated. This is no coincidence. There are far to many of them (attacks), one on top of the other, and the media has either started them or driven them, to the point that almost the moment one attack is running out of steam, the next one begins.
I realize that this is their focus because they themselves have no 'plan'. However, this 'focus' is extremely well organized, and is, IMO, in part, being very successfully implemented via certain media outlets and those who sponsor certain left internet sites and provide them with their daily talking points. But I believe that whomever is calling the shots is bigger than both.
thoughts?
I think what is happening is that, our thanks to the blogosphere, the MSM has been exposed, and they realize there is no going back. The MSM doesn't have to try to pretend anymore, so they aren't. In the past (Cronkite etc.) the MSM was more laid back and sneaky. They clung to the word "journalist", and said (lied is more appropriate) that they were fair, and people wanted to believe that. But now everyone that counts knows the MSM is just the propaganda arm and attack element for what has become the ultra-Left Dem Party (which is also dropping any pretense of being loyal to America and the American military). Without any need to restrain themselves, the MSM has become like a bunch of crazed, undisciplined dogs on the attack.
I do too. And I think that a lot many more do as well. And that's why many are NOT fooled by this second batch of mud being flung.
Libel suit?
Flooding strands thousands in Australia
....SYDNEY (AP) — Rising floodwaters in eastern Australia have stranded up to 3,000 people, an emergency official said Friday......
Besides Bellingen's 2,500 residents, around 500 people in the rural Bellinger Valley also have been cut off by the floods. Campbell said he expected those people to remain isolated over the next two days.......
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/2006-03-03-australia-floods_x.htm?csp=34
Bush's fault
If the media hadn't lost two elections to W, they wouldn't be so bitter.
Now, why they were working for the President's defeat, en masse, is a good question but one they won't ask themselves.
This nation is tired of the media's abuse of our re-elected wartime president.
Another bad November in store for the Dems, regardless of what the experts are telling you now.
Too add to your point, there was a time when the media as business competitors would gladly deconstruct the claims and errors of their media competitors. But now they just mutually reinforce one another's b.s. Witness Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings coming rushing to Dan Blather's defense over the phony Bush Natl. Guard memo. Time was there was a sense of competition in the media that would have had the other networks saying of CBS "See, we are more trustworthy than the other guy." Or this AP lie could have been used by Reuters and UPI to show how they're more trustworthy than AP. But instead of capitalistic competition among the media outlets, there's collusion in reinforcing one another's lies and distortions. Of course they all gang up on Fox News. CNN and MSNBC love to take their pot shots at Fox and to purport to show perceived inaccuracies of their coverage (they almost never can.) But against one another, there's no interest in being more accurate and reliable than the other guy or to tout themselves above their non-Fox News competition. It's just about reinforcing one another's Bush bashing B.S. That's the only real business of the media these days. But then we can't expect capitalism to thrive amongst a bunch of Marxists.
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