I caught a few minutes of Newsnight, Jeremy Paxman talking to whatsisname with the blond hair over in New Orleans. There was rather more material for blog posts than I could cope with, but here’s a few extracts:
“…This is going very badly for the Republicans…”
“…Bush is trying to palm off blame on the director of FEMA… but that won’t wash, since the White House appointed the director of FEMA…”
“This is going to have a big impact on the way President Bush is seen by History, isn’t it?”
It no longer surprises me to hear from the Beeb that History, so tight-lipped to lesser mortals, has already confided her judgement to the Newsnight team. But one comment really did surprise me. Whatsisname actually said that it was “extraordinary” of former President Bill Clinton to intervene to criticise Bush. He said ex-presidents just don’t criticise, even implicitly, their successors.
Hey everyone, don’t know if you saw Channel 4 news, but it was great..
Jon Snow interviewed a Democrat spokesman/ senator and he admitted on TV that nobody could prepare for such an event as it was impossible to predict.
He started off criticising, but contradicted himself, it was brilliant..
i’ve never laughed so much in all my life.
So will all the anti crowd now listen?
After their own spokesman admits on TV that it was impossible to predict or prevent?
I rest my case..
Can i also say re: China, it cannot sustain its growth without resources, resources that the rest of the world already has..in essence unless it can find new technologies/ resources the game is over before it has begun..
Above uth asks for successful moonbat bingo enties (ie spoof (D)HYS). anyone care to replay their greatest hits?
“Can i also say re: China, it cannot sustain its growth without resources, resources that the rest of the world already has..in essence unless it can find new technologies/ resources the game is over before it has begun..”
So like Japan wanting oil, the Chinese will start invading their neighbours?? Witness the arguing over the Spratley Islands with Vietnam just now due to the fact there might be large oilfields there… 2.3 million soldiers all marching in perfect formation…shudder
Currently watching a BBC news ‘interview’ with 2 anti-Bush Americans interviewed on the ‘political damage to Bush’…one is a buffoon from the Brookings Institution and another is a raving loony from the American University. There is no opposing view, the presenter is feeding leading questions to both, there is no mention of the responsibility of the state and local authorities, the fact that the feds have had to take over due to the ineptitude of the state authorities, all the things we have been covering – it is sickening, biased, unbalanced and just plain poor reporting.
The pathetic thing is that there is so much going on in NO that is positive but the BBC just use it as an excuse in their never ending and futile attempts to portray Bush in a negative light. Thank God the majority of Americans can see through this trash.
BBC – hang your heads in shame. The clock is ticking and time is not on your side.
Adios, Reality
Star, Mississippi native Faith Hill must have lost her common sense in Trashville. She tooled into Gulfport with three truckloads of items she’d purchased, and a convoy of security:
Kevin Titus, a Red Cross spokesman, told the Sun Herald that Hill did not want media attention, because she feared the event would appear too much like a “PR campaign,” rather than a relief effort.
Hill was followed by her own camera crew and reporters, instead.
Nah, it won’t look like a PR campaign, you regular hometown girl, you. You’re just working on the world’s most elaborate scrapbook, is all.
http://www.florida-cracker.org/archives/002322.html
I’ve just been watching the 10 o’clock news on BBC1 and its feature report was on Hurricane Katrina, and Bush – Bush under pressure, Bush to blame. But, and the US is FEDERAL republic, not one single mention of state Governor, or city Mayor.
Oh my God! I’d forgotten that California straddles the San Andreas fault and that an earthquake is inevitable. What is Bush going to do about that then?
Now on the Scottish segment of the news, there is a couple from Glasgow returned from Louisiana bemoaning their experience. “It was a shambles”, says she. Yes, it was a f**king hurricane, says I. What did you expect?
All this, on the BBC.
They are getting worse but as they go to further extremes, more and more of us have that Damascene moment where the thought hits you: “that’s not true”, and the spell is broken.
Oh Dear! Ammunition for this blog is just tooo easy.
Small example – BBC 1’s program on what ‘really happened’in NO. Frei refers to Bush’s performance during the 9/11 “incident”
Allan,
If you thought that was bad, you should see Newsnight but you would need to watch your blood pressure. Paxman is performing an utter hatchet job on Bush and FEMA.
I see you met Nero – he’s one of the crackheads who trolls at ¡No Pasaràn!…
This guy has a very long but interesting post analysing the big picture of Katrina.
http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000129.html
One sample quote is relevant to the BBC:
“This difference being lost on them [the foregin media] seems to be this: in an American city there is garbage on the streets and people wander around looking for food and water, AFTER BEING LEVELED BY A CAT 5 HURRICANE, which is the storm swell of the Dec. 2004 tsunami, plus winds, extending inland not for two or three miles but for two or three HUNDRED MILES. In a third world country, people living in stacks of garbage, searching for food and water happens EVERY STINKING DAY. That is the NORM.”
Sorry the above quote should have started with this to put it in context:
“Now it may come as a shock to those foreign luminaries who come to lecture us on how an American city leveled by forces roughly equivelent to a nuclear explosion reduce it to something “like a third world country.”
Three words: France. Heatwave. 2003.
I am sure that Susan at 6.04 is correct about a public enquiry.
Wanna bet that after that the beeb will be featuring many DemocRATS using the word whitewash.
Did the Beeb cover the French soldiers shooting down unarmed civilians in Cote d’Ivoire? Perhaps Nero can tell us about that.
I’m slightly confused that it’s considered appropriate for Bush to lead an enquiry into the flooding response when he’s one of the (many) individuals being criticised.
If there must be an enquiry shouldn’t it be run by an independent, or are there none of those left in the US?
If the BBC can investigate its own complaints, what’s wrong with Bush investigating the hurricane disaster?
LOL! Simon
Cockney,
No doubt there will be several enquiries.
And remember, if Bush doesn’t lead an enquiry, then ‘they’ will say……wait for it……
“Why isn’t he leading an enquiry?”
The old joke is that even if Bush walked on water the press would scream ‘President can’t swim!’
Right, Tom.
When he was in Crawford “they” were wondering why he wasn’t in Washington. He went to Washington and “they” wanted to know why he went back to Washinton. “They” being largely the press corps.
There is nothing that he can do that isn’t a damned if he does or damned if he doesn’t situation.
I must say that I admire his patience and self control. Most people would have blown up at these idiots long ago.
Cockney
Bush knew there wold be enquiries by the Senate and the House, now getting in train.
As CEO it was his duty to run his own enquiry as well, PDQ.
Wells and Frei are going to be very, very annoyed……
“Only 13% blame Bush?”
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm
Oh God, did you see Newsnight (7/9/05)with Paxo hectoring and bullying the Tory chap on “flat taxes,” and shouting at a bemused American economist? the New Labour man, Milliband sat there sniggering as his gang boss eliminated any possibility of civilised debate.
How does he get away with it?
John Skinner
John Skinner – why feel the need to complain about the treatment of the “Tory chap”, when yesterday Davis came out in strong support of Humphrys?
I’ll tell you Natalie what surprises me — that we have to actually pay to send ignorant British reporters to the USofA when there are perfectly capable American ones who actually mostly know by definition what they’re talking about. If I hear any squawks about language or accent! Well that’s just pure foul-mouthed snobbery. After the crap rubbish heard spewing out of Brit gobs in New Orleans, throwing them to the Bayou crocodiles would be a cruel punishment to those reptiles!
How long before the BBC claims that Bush brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs?
Nancy Pelosi, the (Democrat) Minority Leader in the House of Representatives is now trying to kill the Congressional investigation. She says she will not name any Democrat to the investigating committee.
I think she knows where the investigation will lead…right to the Democrat governor of Louisiana and the Democrat mayor of N’awlins. No fool, Nancy. Well, not a complete fool, anyway.
BM
I thought you chaps were into market forces. The fact that many British people can’t stand American accents and presentational style may well be ‘pure foul-mouthed snobbery’ but it’s a fact, of which broadcasters are presumably well aware. The same reason why there aren’t many presenters from Birmingham on national TV.
Cockney,
I rest my case. We are a class- infected ridiculous monarchy that conceitedly thinks it has nothing to learn from the rest of the world.
Not wholly true mate, we just have a long developed national culture which we object to having infiltrated. It’s the same (correct)argument as to why we shouldn’t go out of our way to assimilate Muslim, black culture etc etc.
I don’t think that we can’t learn from others but I do think that we have a healthy sense of our own superiority.
OK Cockney; I see that I’m not going to change your opinion. But how do you think we would cope if there were a Katrina type of disaster in London or Liverpool, and just how would al-beeb “cover” it?