Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The GOP-Biased New York Times

Yesterday, in an article titled “Year After Katrina, Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image”, the NYT said, “When the nation records the legacy of George W. Bush, 43rd president and self-described compassionate conservative, two competing images will help tell the tale. “The first is of Mr. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, bullhorn in hand, feet planted firmly in the rubble of the twin towers. The second is of him aboard Air Force One, on his way from Crawford, Tex., to Washington, peering out the window at the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina thousands of feet below.” WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! The film Americans carry around in their heads is the moment when White House Chief of Staff Andy Card came into a classroom in Florida where the Prez was reading a children’s book to second-graders and Card told Bush a second plane had rammed into the World Trade Center. The image that is indelibly printed on the collective mind of Americans is that President Bush remained seated, seemingly in a trance, for fully five minutes and that he took no immediate action whatsoever. Americans' particular memory about President Bush and Katrina is that when a category 5 Hurricane hit Louisiana on August 28, the President of the United States did not decide to cut his vacation short until August 30th. And another Bush/Katrina memory etched in Americans’ minds is that by September 1, we all knew how many times the Bush administration had been briefed about the severity of Katrina and we all knew that the failure of the levees had been predicted for years. And yet, on September 1, 2005 President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” Lies, inaction, ineptitude, wrong-headed stubbornness, inappropriate remarks, silly smirks, and the senseless deaths of 2631 American soldiers are the recorded photos and video that will “help tell the tale” of the worst president in America’s history, no matter how skewed the MSM chooses to report events. And by the way, while we’re talking about the extent of the GOP influence on the New York Times and the extent to which the NYT is willing to be complicit in dirty tricks, a headline this morning grabbed my attention: “Clinton Makes Up for Lost Time in Battling AIDS”. In case you’re wondering, the article is about Bill Clinton who is in Rwinkwavu, Rwanda visiting AIDS survivors who are alive because of the medicines his foundation donated.

1 comment:

Charles D said...

How about that image of Bush strumming a guitar he was given at a GOP fundraiser while thousands were stranded on their rooftops in Louisiana?

How about the image of Bush in his flightsuit with the accentuated codpiece in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner on USS Lincoln -- 2 1/2 f*&%king years ago!

How about the image of Bush answering the question about the connection between Iraq and 9/11 CORRECTLY, finally, at his last phony press conference?

Surely the nation's newspaper of record ought to be able to tell a staged photo op from reality - but then again....