Casting around for blame for this still-ongoing catastrophe is becoming endemic on the three cable networks. I saw Trent Lott interviewed, making excuses for the delay in federal help: access was hard, all the guys had to get to the depot. Anderson Cooper was tough on him, but missed the obvious rejoinder: "The cable news networks got here as it broke; how come the feds didn't?" The media saw the storm was a huge event, and they pre-planned. They got everybody staged, they put their resources into it, and they've been rotating personnel in and out throughout the week, proving that access has been continually possible. The media, to their credit, have shown more brains and more balls, and more sheer humanity, than those agencies that are officially responsible. Maybe the federal government should hire the logistics teams from CNN.
I typically watch all three cable networks in a crisis. For once, Fox's tabloidization and male hysteria have been right on target. O'Reilly is freaking out asking why Bush won't call for a voluntary profit cut by oil companies, instead of the obvious price gouging that is going on. Fox reporters, so used to going for the emotional, have blurted out the truths: a baby was killed in a convention center stampede of terrified refugees after the middle-of-the-night explosion that marked the start of the fires in the city; a baby was stillborn to a mother that same night. Geraldo just called it the worst situation he'd ever seen in a civilized country, and when O'Reilly pointed out that the security at least appeared better, Geraldo raved: it's better near me, he said, they're protecting me, and the medics over there, but all these other 30 thousand people have no security. He waved the cameras to pan the crowd. This is a situation in which raving and hollering is the least a reporter can do.
I've also listened to the blather emitted by Bush and by Laura. What strikes me -- and if I have time I'll check the transcripts if they're available--is the emphasis on Americans helping out, giving money. Bush appeared with the ex-Prezes to pump for the collection of contributions to aid the victims. Laura made some snide remarks about how people should go down to the disaster area to help, and if they don't have time this week, they should go next week or the week after. (What are those girls doing this week and next, BTW?) I know the repugs ideologically support laissez-faire in government, but the atrocious mishandling of the relief effort and this campaign to push the responsibility for aid on to Americans instead of emphasizing the government's responsibility to take charge show just how lacking in conscience and humanity they are. This disaster puts the repugnant in repugs for sure.
And now (this evening) O"Reilly has reverted to form and elicited from a retired military consultant the concept that it was the entirely the LA governor's job to get all the ducks in a row to plan and implement aid. I don't know what party she is from, but it's a good bet she's a Democrat, the way they are trying to put the blame on her. Of course, if she had only been a Bush cousin, or at least an in-law, she might have seen her state over-run with assistance from day one.