9/11 anniversary: How far 'off message' is the 'press corpse' going?

[AirAmFan]

Have you been surprised by unexpectedly open and honest coverage of the federal reaction to Hurricane Katrina? How far 'off message' is the 'press corpse' going? Is anyone in the MSM connecting what the Bush Misadministration did last week with what it did four years ago? Will "Floodgate" do to Dubya what Watergate did to Nixon?

Massive live press coverage of Hurricane Katrina has revealed Dubya's "Homeland Security" as a dangerous boondoggle--a politicized dismantlement of longstanding capacity to help first responders. As they prepared to tip the teetering USSC decisively to the right and to enact another round of "tax-cuts" for plutocrats, the White House have found that many of its "presstitutes" are way "off message". They are broadcasting and rebroadcasting unrefutable evidence of massive White House and Executive Branch incompetence, rather than praising Dubya as a Churchillian hero.

But what happened during the Katrina relief effort was nothing new. 9/11 ITSELF was a scandal of cowardice and incompetence.

Remember how, right from the start, Dubya's new administration sidelined Richard Clarke, the expert who was "too focused on bin Laden"?

Remember how Dubya was on vaction and did not read the 8/6/01 PDB warning of imminent attack?

Remember how Dubya sat reading "My Pet Goat" as bin Laden attacked on 9/11/01?

Remember how later that day Dubya scurried from hidey-hole to deeper hidey-hole, shirking his leadership duties and helping to sink the travel industry for many years?

Remember how Dubya confessed, "I was trying to get out of harm's way"?

How far do you think the new "glastnost" in the media will go on the anniversary of 9/11? Will ANYONE in the MSM finally focus on Dubya's cowardice on 9/11, presumptuous ignorance before then, and monumental incompetence on "homeland security" since?

[blossomstar]

1. I was just as outraged then as now!

even more so because I felt almost alone... everyone was thinking the jerk was a hero, all I saw was that he didn't react as a real President should, then ran and hid, then took advantage of the disaster for a photo op! The media made him a king to the poor people that didn't see through him. After a horrible abusive first marriage, I can spot a "prick" from a mile away... I knew * was one even before 9-11, but just how big a prick I didn't realize until then. Yes, I remember, I remember it all, every detail and it still makes me sick. What I'm hoping is that now, those people that saw him through a "colored lens" from the media at that time are seeing the real "prick" that we saw then. The media is at fault for a lot of this by playing Bush and Rove's game... spreading their propaganda as "real" news...I think the media too is looking back and realizing that they've been had by a genuine "prick" and a dumb one at that.

[AirAmFan]

2. Here (in YELLOW!) is the heroic pResident's 9/11 route to DC:

This comes from an astonishingly thorough webpage I just found, devoted to what exactly Dubya did on 9/11. The truth sure is out there, but will ANYONE from the MSM pick it up and run with it?

See http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html

[NYC]

4. Welcome to DU.

I'm sorry you were surrounded by people who thought Bush was a hero on 9/11. That must have been galling. At least in NYC, we all knew him for what he was.

Maybe looking back, the media will start to re-report 9/11. I hope so. If they had told the truth then, we might have been spared Bush's creation of Homeland Security and Homeland Security's FEMA. Poor New Orleans. This wasn't necessary.

[blossomstar]

10. Not "might" have been spared, we "would" have been

spared Bush for another 4 years... the media are 100 percent responsible for his re-election, and they know it. That makes the MEDIA 100 percent responsible for this pre-emptive war (they also reported what * wanted) as well as the bungled federal response to Katrina! I am sorry to say that the majority of Americans do not scout around the internet and get their news... they sit in front of a tv and BELIEVE anything they're told! If it was on the news, then it is the gospel! Everyone's so impressed with the media telling the truth about Katrina.. well, my question is why the hell didn't they tell the truth all along!! Too little too late from the MEDIA.

[NYC]

17. You're correct, and I admit to not always choosing my words carefully.

I definitely write inaccurately.

Had the media done what the media should we would't have had the AWOL failure the first time. Almost NOBODY would have voted for him. They would not have been able to steal the election.

Re Americans not scouting around the internet for news, a neighbor of mine (television watcher, no internet) asked me for whom I would vote in the primary. I said Kucinich, and she said, "Who's he? I've never heard of him." I told her why she hadn't heard of him. She's a good person. Had he received fair publicity, she would have voted for him.

Yes, the media gets credit for Katrina, but I think that is because all of us are so surprised that they are actually covering it.

Too little too late, but think about this. This is the best they have done in a long time. Imagine if they covered Katrina the way they covered everything else. Even I would be saying, "Who is Katrina?"

[blossomstar]

19. so true!

maybe now they'll start to cover the "real" news instead of WH talking points. Wish I lived in NY! So progressive, but I guess this is my home and I might as well stick it out. NC is a poor state and how it can be so RED is beyond me... these idiots are voting just so they can carry guns against their very livlihood. I guess we didn't get the reputation of all being duh? for nothing. I used to laugh about the southern red neck thing, but now, it just isn't funny anymore after the war and now Katrina... Now Ophelia is out there hovering on our coast... gosh, I feel so safe, if all is lost, FEMA will be on the way!

[AirAmFan]

14. You're in NYC? Are city and state Republicans doing anything to

capitalize on the 9/11 anniversary? Are they ignoring Dubya?

[NYC]

16. No, they're pretty quiet.

This morning, the siblings of the dead read off the names of the deceased at the World Trade site.

This afternoon, there was a protest against the media cover up of 9/11. That's where I was. We started at the New York Times, and passed other media buildings after that, wound up at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the U.N.

The police were quite nice, so I assume that is because Billionaire Bloomberg is now campaigning for reelection.

P.S. New Yorkers don't exploit 9/11. Bush does that. People around here don't. People around here don't appreciate Bush exploiting 9/11.

[AirAmFan]

3. PHOTOS of 2 cowardly pResidential odysseys, 4 years apart:

Dubya "inspecting damage in New orleans" on Wednesday, and



"trying to stay out of harm's way" on 9/11/01. This photo, of Dubya phoning home to Cheney's undisclosed location, actually was used in an aborted Republican fundraising campaign! See the webpage I linked in Message #2.

[AirAmFan]

5. When reporters said Dubya "skedaddled" "like a scared child" on 9/11,

what happened to them? They were FIRED!

From http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html

"An Interesting Day: President Bush's Movements and Actions on 9/11

By Allan Wood and Paul Thompson

May 9, 2003

... why, at 9:03 a.m. -- fifteen minutes after it was clear the United States was under terrorist attack -- did President Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo op? No one knows the answer to that question. In fact, no one has even asked Bush about it....

Details reported that day and in the week after the attacks - both the media reports and accounts given by Bush himself -- ... changed radically .... Culling hundreds of reports from newspapers, magazines, and the internet has only made finding the "truth" of what happened and when it happened more confusing. In the changed political climate after 9/11, few have dared raise challenging questions about Bush's actions. A journalist who said Bush was "flying around the country like a scared child, seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare" and another who said Bush "skedaddled" were fired. (Washington Post, 9/29/01)"

For more reminiscences and photos about the truth covered up by post-9/11 spin, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4731774

[AirAmFan]

6. Thanks for the 'Greatest' nomination. Many more people need to have

their memories of what REALLY happened on 9/11 nudged . Then George "Where's Waldo?" Bush will be seen for what he really was on 9/11/01, just as he's more and more being seen for what he was during the Great New Orleans Flood of 2005 last week.

[Disturbed]

7. The Silverspoon Sociopath is a coward.

Anyone who doesn't know that is a fool.

[AirAmFan]

8. "Silverspoon Sociopath"--Hadn't heard that one before. Reminds me of what

a former governor of Texas once said about his father:

"Poor George (H.W.) Bush--he was born with a silver FOOT in his mouth"!

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree:
-- Last week, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job".
-- Four years ago: Dubya's call for a "crusade" to avenge the victims of the hijackings, the WTC, and the Pentagon.

[Pepperbelly]

9. Press Corpse?

I like that and may steal it if you don't have it copyrighted. :D

[AirAmFan]

13. I did not coin that phrase. I don't remember when or where I first heard it.

Isn't it great? It says, "investigative journalism is dead", replaced by gaggles of zombies with tape recorders, steno pads, and fax machines for verbatim repetition of mindless White House propaganda.

[librechik]

11. New Propaganda movie out this week in the Flt 93 "let's roll" heroes

Sure, it's "entertainment" so I suppose they will fictionalize to some extent, and that's ok.

It will also propagate those myths to more and more of the public.

Maybe the MSM will do some catchup on their miserable blatant cowardly lies of 9/11. However, I'm afraid I know better. I am a very small cog in that machine, and I have been beating my head against a giant wall for not 4 years, but since Dec. 12, 2000, when I began to be ignored about the various and repeated crimes of the Bush administration. IF ONLY the major "stars" of network media would change their minds about reporting the facts instead of the WH spin, that would help. IF ONLY Executive Producers would respect their reporters more than their corporate masters, that might make it happen. But they don't and they won't and if they did the masters would just fire them and put some incompetent lapdog in their place.

So, in short, the corporate masters, the GEs, the Viacoms, the Time Warners, the Murdochs, all have to stop being fat, bought-out greedy overprivileged white pricks with nothing but profit on their minds. If they don't allow more of Brian Williams speaking out, of Shepard Smith telling the truth, if they don't allow the truth without bias to continue FOREVER, no matter what the subject is (such as their own corruption) it won't happen. These isolated unavailable unaccountable assholes are the true target for reform. Have at it, and good luck.

And these people are CONSERVATIVES. They don't change their minds and they don't admit mistakes.

So, as much as ALL OUR LIVES depend on these guys suddenly getting empathy, I just can't be optimistic about it happening.

Thank god me and my loved ones weren't in the flood. I can afford to try to enjoy the shortened number of days we have left on earth thanks to BushCo, and maybe even help out a little with the survivors. Too many other people aren't that lucky.

[AirAmFan]

12. Great post! A reminder that big media have INVESTED in Dubya's

USSC selection and "Homeland Security" re-election propaganda, for coldly crass reasons. All Jack Welch (GE, NBC major shareholder and ex-CEO) really cares about is the value of his GE shares. Considering how much power the Federal government has to approve or disapprove media mega-mergers, give away HDTV broadcast rights, etc., it must have made a lot of sense to INVEST millions in Dubya's 2000 campaign, and to do everything he could to see those millions were not wasted in victories for Gore or Kerry.

People like Welch, Ailes, Murdoch, etc. know how to hire the best to get results. Since at least the toppling of elected leader Mossadegh in Iran in the 50s, "political" operatives have honed their skills at disinformation and all the other arts of suppressing democracy and installing puppet governments. Why wouldn't big media bring these tools of political control back home to the USA? Thus they got into bed with people like Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, the "pollster" who's re-read George Orwell's 1984 many times, and turned it into an election and governing manual! (See http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript327_full.html .) Because disinformation is so important for political control, big media play a HUGE part in Rove's well-executed PR campaign for his corporate puppet, Dubya.

So far, payoffs to big media and other large corporate interests have been handsome. Rove has come through with corpoprate regulatory victories and TRILLIONS of dollars in "tax cuts" for those in the CEO bracket, financed by sacking the Treasury, looting FICA, and pushing up the poverty rate by 20 percent.

The only way big media would begin to question their faith in Dubya would be if his monumental clueless incompetence brings down the economy and drives up their taxes. The Katrina disaster has the potential to do this. In the long term, overseas operations to install corporate puppets frequently have proved counterproductive, too. How well did installing the Shah of Iran turn out for multinational corporations? Big media's investment in Dubya has the potential for the same kind of long-run fiasco for those who care only about money.

[AirAmFan]

15. Dubya kept a low profile today: Photo-ops in militarty-controlled environments only

From http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2005/09/11/ap/headlines/d8cicjtg0.txt :

"Bush Joins Recovery Leaders in New Orleans

By JENNIFER LOVEN Sunday, September 11, 2005 8:05 PM CDT

NEW ORLEANS - President Bush, eager to show hands-on leadership in the Gulf Coast hurricane recovery effort, joined commanders working from a military ship docked in this flooded city on Sunday. The president visited firefighters who have been battling the blazes that persistently erupt across the city, then was sleeping on the USS Iwo Jima. The amphibious assault ship is serving as a control center in the relief efforts. ...

Bush began the day in recognition of the fourth anniversary of the other tragedy that has marked his presidency _ the Sept. 11 attacks. As he has every year since 2001, the president observed a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. EDT, the exact minute when hijackers smashed the first passenger jet into the World Trade Center. He left the White House in the afternoon for New Orleans, where he was greeted by New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin. Bush shed his sports coat before boarding a helicopter for a brief flight to the ship docked in the Mississippi River in front of the convention center, where thousands of people waited in squalor for several days before being rescued.

Upon arrival on the flight deck of the ship, Bush was greeted by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, commander of the New Orleans relief efforts, and Army Lt. Russel Honore, who is coordinating military relief efforts along the Gulf Coast. He then posed for photos with the flight deck crew that has guided rescue flights and the Marine One helicopter that carried Bush onto the ship. ...

The president made no public comments during any of Sunday's events."

[AirAmFan]

18. Anybody further 'off message' than Froomkin(WP): 'Emperor has no clothes'!

This is not the 9/11 coverage Rove envisioned for his "boss". A Washington Post columnist has let loose, and has provided URL links to other unflattering MSM coverage of Dubya over the fourth anniversary weekend.

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html :

"Now They Tell Us

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com Monday, September 12, 2005; 1:33 PM

Amid a slew of stories this weekend about the embattled presidency and the blundering government response to the drowning of New Orleans, some journalists who are long-time observers of the White House are suddenly sharing scathing observations about President Bush that may be new to many of their readers. Is Bush the commanding, decisive, jovial president you've been hearing about for years in so much of the mainstream press? Maybe not so much.

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. ... He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test....

An emperor-has-no-clothes moment seems upon us...."