If you’re one of the twenty relevant liberals on Twitter who believe that the difference between Katrina’s handling by Bush differs from the Tennessee flood and BP spill handling by Obama because “more people died,” you’re crazy and this article is not for you.
If you’re anyone else, you know that something stinks about the disaster coverage and about President Obama’s reaction to the disasters.
Howard Kurtz actually believes that the oil spill has been covered extensively. No it hasn’t.
I’m from Houston and I covered Hurricane Ike, so I know what it’s like to have a disaster the press doesn’t care about. The damage was horrific. Galveston Island was nearly wiped out. An estimated 400 or more people died and 300 are still unaccounted for. Gone.
National media? Crickets.
President Bush was in office. It was his home state. Some in the lefty blogosphere even stated that the people of Texas got what they deserved.
Never mind that Galveston had a Democrat for a mayor; never mind that the area, like many beach towns, is liberal. It was Texas and the people there deserved what they got for voting Republican.
Did the press blame President Bush for his lack of response? No. The leadership in the state of Texas, and in Houston locally, was seamless. The people here had lots of experience, as the city of Houston took on tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita folks.
There was still unimaginable suffering. People are still rebuilding. In fact, only over the last few weeks, roofers have come along giving estimates, because time limits are nearly up to get insurance reimbursement for damage. Our family had seven trees removed a year later because they died as a result of the storm. We had six fall right away.
It takes a very long time to recover from such devastation.
As in Houston in 2008 and Nashville in 2010, there is real bias in the national media against “hick” towns. New Orleans has panache. Yes, it’s a liberal bastion of crime, squalor, and destitution, but all that evil happens on an artsy-fartsy and smug exterior.
Libs love the town, and they loved that a Democrat mayor and Democrat governor blamed a Republican president. The liberal press gorged themselves on the smorgasbord of self-indulgent moralizing while American citizens in the middle of the country — whom they so despise — actually did the job of taking care of the displaced and grieving.
Howard Kurtz concluded:
In Nashville, though, a storied American city suffered a devastating blow and many lives were lost. It’s too bad the news business seems able to juggle only one or two crises at a time.
Baloney. They just didn’t care. It didn’t effect anyone they know.
I jokingly put up a post asking: “Why does President Obama and the media hate white people?” This headline was a play on Kanye West’s outrageous claim that “George Bush hates black people.”
While the press weren’t covering Nashville, my post was getting a lot of attention. People did and do wonder about the apparent disregard for those not politically the same as Obama. They wonder if President Obama would manage to make a trip if the flooding had happened in, say, Philadelphia. Everyone knows the answer to this.
And the press won’t press.
They also won’t press on the oil spill. Had a Republican been in charge, this disaster would be relentlessly covered. We would see poor little oil-covered creatures. We’d see Anderson Cooper giving a manatee mouth-to-mouth and crying salty tears over the plight of animals. Geraldo Rivera would be ripping his shirt and displaying chest hair in righteous lamentation over the dead fish and stench of rotting sea life filling the air.
Instead, we have restrained, factual reporting, which is actually nice for a change. But it is so ridiculously biased that a blind man can see the hypocrisy. This oil spill and the Obama administration’s dopey handling of it should be like a huge, nasty smudge on his reputation. This is something he saw and feared.
No worries, though! He’s a Democrat.
Being a Democrat means, inherently, that one cares. How can one be an uncaring Democrat? It’s not possible. Democrats are good people. Republicans are evil.
So every article has been a fluffy lovefest for the president. He is just so good.
How much money did President Obama receive from BP? Quickly now. What? The number isn’t blazoned into your consciousness? What are President Obama’s ties to the industry? What rules did he change or manipulate for BP?
Uh-huh.
There are answers, of course, and they are all damning for President Obama. But he is a Democrat, so that’s just extraneous information. No need to play the blame game, don’t you see?
Tragedies happen. Disasters happen. Could President Obama stop the rain? No, but he could act like he gives a damn.
Could he stop the oil rig from blowing? Maybe. But we’ll never know. Safety precautions? Inspections? Look the other way; President Obama is a Democrat.
And while we’re at it, could the Times Square bombing have been prevented? Maybe. Don’t expect the press to investigate it. Hey, Howard Kurtz: Since the press was focusing on the Times Square Bomber, do you think they could do a little causative analysis? You know, contemplate policy changes and consider whether the new administration put policies in place that might have resulted in a dude who’s been watch-listed parking in the middle of the busiest block of the country with a car bomb? Yeah, that.
President Obama isn’t the teflon president. He’s got better armor. He’s the Democratic president. It’s like a super power: it makes the press incurious, stupid, and strangely unwilling to draw conclusions.
The people of Nashville do notice. How can they not? The question is: do the people of New York and New Orleans notice?
The president’s handling of all these messes has not inspired confidence. In fact, it’s caused profound concern. President Obama seems as incompetent and distant as many feared before the election.
It would be nice if the press demonstrated an ounce of fairness between a Republican and Democrat leader. But it’s just the same old, same old.
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