During the response to Hurricane Katrina, three important people said three incredible things.
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers: “The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday – ‘New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,’ or words to that effect.”
- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff: “I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don’t have food and water.”
- FEMA head (outgoing) Michael Brown: “Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.”
What all three statements have in common is that they were said a day – or even days – after every major media outlet in the United States had prominently reported on the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the thousands of people massing at the convention center.
These statements have one more thing in common. On 9/23/2003, President George W. Bush said: “I glance at the headlines just to kind of a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves.”
Leadership – as well as lack of leadership – comes from the top, always. Is it any surprise that others in this administration don’t read the news?
Gopher 09/11/05 10:37 PM
I suppose that reading the news is all aboutt exactly what it is you want to hear. You can take anything out of context and spin it any direction you like.
If I want to hear what a great job W. is doing I’ll tune in to Fox. If I want to hear how much better Kerry would have done then I go to CNN. If I want the straight poop there really isn’t anywhere to go so you have to listen to both sides and take an “educated guess” as to exactly where (between the two) the truth lies.
Politicians bitch about the media, The media pitches about the politicians. They all suck.
Gopher
Flying Booger 09/12/05 4:49 AM
Gopher, I don’t know of any one source where you can get actual, unfiltered, unbiased news. In this country, I think NPR comes closer than most. Even though most of their reporters and commentators are personally liberal/leftist/progressive/pinko, they bend over backwards to keep their reporting neutral. Still, they don’t report a lot of things, which is in itself political – you don’t hear them saying anything about the police, the military, and private security forces (Blackwater) taking legally registered guns and rifles away from people in New Orleans, for example.
I think you have to look at a combination of sources – in my case NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and several news and political blogs – to get a more complete picture of what’s going on. And having done that, do I really have a complete picture? Of course not.
But there’s no doubt in my mind there’s a lack of leadership at the top, and has been all along. You and I have both seen similar lack-of-leadership situations in the military. We know the symptoms, and there’s no mistaking the disease in the president and his cabinet. You and I could have done a better job than any of the lot of them. So why aren’t we in charge?
Battered Woman 09/15/05 3:37 AM
Is that a Flying Booger\Gopher ticket for ’08?
OnOn
Battered Woman
Flying Booger 09/17/05 2:33 AM
Gopher, you wanna run for president? I’ll settle for a political appointment. Just don’t offer me the vice presidency, unless you’re going to push through a constitutional amendment to rename it religious adviser!