With tomorrow come some inevitabilities. More NOLA residents will die waiting to be rescued. Brown and Chertoff will change the subject, maybe to the vagaries of the infield fly rule. And Bush will ride into the area on a white stallion to carry the po black folk to safety while spouting Rovian talking points.
After his last visit there were many reports of staged photo ops and grounded rescue helicopters. Some were typical political moves like screening the victims and not going anywhere a body might happen to float by. But others were malicious and costly, like taking down distribution points after Bush left or making a show of the levee almost fixed when in fact it was not.
So the real question is; How can we catch him red handed as the self-promoting, disconnected, lofty fuck that he is? Because as we all know, the MSM aren't going to take their new-found balls out on this one.
My friend who is a producer for Fox News (don't worry, she is part of the solution, not the problem, and has been doing great work from NO since last Sunday) pitched the idea to her boss to do a behind-the-presidential-visit piece, but of course their response was, "we don't have enough reporters to cover his visit, so we cant spend time doing investigative pieces".
Good to know that cable news doesn't have time to do investigative pieces, although we've known that for years. So while this was not surprising, the question remains, how can we prove this as the PR stunt that it is?
Does anyone know people down there who could make it a point to stay behind after Bush's appearances and see what happens? Or note if rescues continue while he is around NOLA? Or ask the people he hugs how they were chosen?
On the face of it, this would seem a small task. Maybe I am underestimating and maybe they won't be so callous this time after some of the reports trickled out last time. Last time he visited, his numbers bumped up and therefore if someone can exposed this as a PR event this time, it might have the opposite effect.
Any thoughts welcome.
There are few inevitabilities left in this world; death, taxes, cal ripken jr., and a certain Texan insisting, "It's not time to point fingers"
That is unless you're pointing them at state and local officials, oh and the media.
