John's Blog

TPMcafe: Sorting Out Opinion From Fact On Katrina (VIA Daily Kos)
Full steam ahead for the "swiftboating" of Katrina:
"While watching the MSNBC program, CONNECTED, COAST TO COAST with Ron Reagan, a man from the Evergreen Foundation was on air spinning the myth that the President had to "beg" the Governor of Louisiana to take action. Having been on this show several times I called one of the bookers, Susan Durrwatcher, to alert her to the fact that this man was misrepresenting what happened. I offered Susan the following objective, documented facts (see timeline below). Susan thanked me for my "opinion" and said "we just have a different perspective". Stunned, I asked her by what standard of journalism that an objective fact was mere opinion? I asked her to simply look at the documents and correct the record. She declined...."

And another Kos thread that puts it better than I could: "One of the more spectacular results of this administration's insistence on lying about everything, all the time is that they never go to much trouble to make sure each lie matches the next. This is because, to use a scientific explanation, they are unrepentant syphilitic dog whores....So for the sake of argument, fine: let's grant the central premise the White House was following the dangerous progress of Katrina well in advance, and urged evacuations. Let's grant the premise that they were "ready" for this storm, according to the standards that Bush set for himself. On vacation. While receiving ceremonial guitars. Does that make the now-universally-recognized-as-inadequate administration response better? Or spectacularly worse?

Here's the problem, with all these lies. There's a city gone. And during the period of time when the people of that city needed help most, that help was not there. That's not spinnable. That's simple fact. It's not going to go away..."

Be sure to sign the MoveOn petition demanding that Bush stop blaming victims and just focus on helping them. If you need a refresher on "what happened when", a useful timeline of what really happened.

Finally, one last link that was posted at Brillant At Breakfast, that is a "must-see". Driftglass had done a photo-essay on Katrina titled "Us and Them". One of his readers took it to the next level and re-did it as a video featuring the Pink Floyd Song of the same name.