And the target is: GEORGE W. BUSH....
Thank God! The casualty estimates (read: scandalous projections) by the media are proving to be incorrect. It looks like there will NOT be 10,000 dead, 25,000 body bags, etc. ad nauseum, that was reported all last week.
Why has the media decided to make predictions that make the weather reports seem like the most accurate thing since sliced bread? Why is it that they are reporting exaggerated death counts for New Orleans, but not discussing how in fact Gov. Blanco delayed action by key hours that put lives at risk? Why are we still hearing about the thousands projected dead, when the COMBINED death toll for both Mississippi and New Orleans has not reached 1000 yet?
The answer: this is the newest Cindy Sheehan maneuver: weapons of mass exaggeration. For example, exaggerating the "evidence" that Bush was AWOL, exaggerating the lack of uparmored equipment in Iraq, exaggerating the level of conspiracy in 9/11, and exaggerating the death toll in New Orleans.
Of course, as in the case of these other incidents, the truth makes free. The truth will come out, that in fact this was a massive screw-up by the local government, by the local people, and that the feds did all they could.
FEMA was there in less than three days. For the previous hurricanes, it took five days. Yet, according to the media, this was terribly slow. Hmmm...
What we are seeing here, is that there are in fact two realities. There is the real world, where we live. And then, there is the media reality. In the media reality, only the very wealthy got out safe, and they were all white....come on now. Ridiculous, but that is the impression you get from the "media reality."
From the media reality, which sadly, folks like Bill Kristol and that contributor at the Corner seem to be falling into, the government rides in on the great white horse in all situations, being the federal government, and saves the day.
The reality is, federal bureaucracies are painfully slow, even in crisis.
Here are the real lessons we can learn from the hurricane:
1. Take personal responsibility for your safety--daddy govt. doesn't work
2. Welfare administrations do not produce a level playing field, as they are advertised. Welfare is a drug which leads to long term addiction and lack of reaching out and over, to achieve.
3. People who are spoonfed by government do not have the tools of responsibility.
4. Large bureaucracies are failures, no matter what.
The lessons the media takes are:
1. Republicans are racist.
2. Republicans hate the poor.
3. Republicans want people to die.
4. We need even larger, more complex bureaucracies to spoonfeed people.
5. Welfare levels the playing field, taking from the rich and giving the poor equal opportunity to get out of poverty (despite 40 years of proof to the contrary).
