Rusted Sky

Like an entire STATE when it comes to disaster relief. To look at the coverage, the ONLY place affected by Katrina was New Orleans. I know, I know, the media just wants to 'help' by pointing out the problems. And now they're tossing the race card on top, trying to ... what? Try to deflect blame from the NOLA mayor and the failed city disaster prep folks? Yet if the media won't acknowledge and detail the scope of the actual problem, how can they effectively suggest remedies?

Captain's Quarters

The media has painted a distorted picture of the disaster almost from the beginning, and certainly after the levees broke on Lake Pontchartrain. The scope of 9/11 was a few city blocks in New York and Washington DC, and if one relied on the Exempt Media coverage for Katrina, the impression it gives is that the scope for Katrina's impact falls mainly on an entire city.

However, vast stretches of Mississippi have been devastated by Katrina, with towns like Biloxi and Gulfport almost completely destroyed. The area of destruction requiring attention comprises the same square mileage as England. Getting resources to all affected points within that zone simultaneously would take an unprecedented, Herculean effort that no one could have anticipated prior to landfall on Monday morning.

Yet that effort is characterized as half-hearted and incompetent. The AJC this morning said the response was about that of a third-world country.

As I've detailed before, what we've done in response to Katrina is nothing less than an organizational and logistics miracle. That there's folks who not only won't realize that but go out of their way to denigrate it is pretty darn pathetic.

Update: One of the commetors posts:

"Now then, if the MSM were to look at the outlying areaas....outlying areas the size of Great Britain...they might see a shattered population and infrastructure where neighbor is helping neighbor, where aid is vitally needed, but people are making do until it arrives, where there is no wholesale despair, no wholesale lawlessness, and a place where people picking up the few pieces of their lives that remain, holding on to their Faith, and try to push on through to the next day and the next day...where volunteerism is far more important than politics. These are the things that are deeply held by Mr. Bush.

If I were a cynic, I might actually believe that the MSM's coverage of the New Orleans debacle, and the intense coverage of Democratic officials bemoaning the lack of Fedex overnight instant aid from Bush was an intentional ploy to undermine the present Administration. But they wouldn't do that, would they?

Honestly? I think they would, for just that reason. It's not about taking care of the disaster victims or possibly fixing the problems- it's about dragging down Bush. They've got great pictures to do it with, and over the next few months EVERYTHING is going to be Bush's fault - even when all the evidence is pointing precisely where the real problem was.

J.