fair and balanced

The following note was just forwarded to me by a friend. I don’t know who the original author was:

The reason Bush keeps taking heavy damage on his failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina is not because the media became suddenly more bold or more inquisitive, as is argued in several op-ed pieces around the nation.

Rather, there are two reasons Bush gets hammered each night on the network news and in newspapers all over the world. First, there are no DoD-controlled press pools similar to the ones covering the Iraq War. This lack of government manipulation allows reporters to freely provide on-the-spot live and factual coverage exposing the lies and the incompetence of FEMA, the GOP, and Bush himself. And, second, there is no massive Pentagon propaganda machine set up in New Orleans or other stricken areas to provide their flat-earth version of “balanced” reporting with dozens of press releases and subject matter experts readily available.

Therefore, I predict two things. First, there will be a massive influx of public affairs con artists from military and FEMA-related government agencies into the region who will relentlessly pound home the message that all is OK. And, second, this new propaganda presence will restrict the media with pool coverage or an outright ban on entry into New Orleans, thus allowing the government to dominate the press coverage of the recover with their message all the time. Without coverage of screaming women and children demanding food, Bush’s horrible and deadly failure may slowly recede from view as the water is pumped from the new ‘Lake New Orleans.’

Once this 24/7 Pentagon propaganda team fires up, they’ll then confuse the people with a flood of dubious reports that place more blame on the locals with the clear intent to spread the mud and thus make the Federal response appear not as seriously flawed. The DoD press machine will switch the issue from incompetence (blame Bush) to unexpected and overwhelming (blame the locals)….

Give it a few days for the major hitters to come in and snuff the press coverage; meanwhile, wait for the press to lose interest and slowly pull out reporters. Be warned that this is coming. Thus, if we don’t continuously pound home the message that Bush failed and up to ten thousand people needlessly died, then Bush may get away with yet another terrible crime against humanity.

And, judging from what I’m seeing, that’s exactly what’s taking place right now. The message, as the say, is being aggressively controlled.