UnNews:Instapundit on Katrina lessons: "Blame the media"

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Truth doesn't "live here" — It's just camping out

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UnNews

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Thursday, November 21, 2024, 18:19:59 (UTC)

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29 August 2006

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A photo of the damage from Hurricane Katrina. Conservative bloggers say the chances this was taken by a liberal journalist solely to discredit the president are "extremely high."

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- As the United States marked the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina Tuesday, blogger Glenn Reynolds urged the nation "to reflect on the enormous damage the media did to President Bush."

"I remember watching those scenes a year ago," the University of Tennessee law professor wrote on his Instapundit.com blog. "They shocked and sickened me. We should never forget those images of people criticizing our president, and we must do all we can to prevent this tragedy from happening again."

Hurricane Katrina came ashore on August 29, 2005. The storm killed over 1,800 people and did billions of dollars in damage to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Reynolds and fellow bloggers responded to the disaster by criticizing state and local response, attacking reporting on the tragedy for its "dangerous reflection of reality" and exonerating George W. Bush from any blame for the slow response. They engaged in fundraising in the little time that remained.

"I simply could not believe what I was seeing," said John Hinderacker of Powerline. "Thousands and thousands of poor people, starving and displaced, and acting like the White House had some responsibility to them. This is why the MSM is dying."

Quoting St. Augustine, who taught that the senses give a flawed understanding of creation, Hinderacker urged his fellow Americans to view the world as how they would like it to be.

"Think of a world without journalists or liberals," he said. "Where there are no poor, no sick and no oppressed, and where the president holds us close, his strong arms pressing us tenderly to a chest made taut by years of ranching."

To mark the anniversary of the storm, Reynolds traveled to Washington with bloggers Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin. The three met with Karl Rove and vowed to do "everything they could" to restore the president's reputation. Reynolds urged Rove to fund a "Hurricane Victims for Truth" organization, and pledged to link to its releases without reading their content.

Hewitt told reporters after the meeting that they "made him nauseous."

"There's a rich, rich man on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and he's dying in there!" Hewitt yelled, his arms shaking. "He means the best for everyone, and you bastards can't throw a compliment his way! Come on! Get off your asses and help us!"

Another image the bloggers called "left-wing propoganda."

Hewitt fell sobbing into Reynolds' arms.

Malkin followed up on his comments by mauling NBC News reporter David Gregory and BBC correspondent Katty Kay.

"Typical," Malkin said when asked the reasons for her attack. "You 'objective' journalists won't acknowledge the great successes of this administration, but a conservative bites two of you and drinks their lifeblood, and you're all over it. Liberal lies. Well, the American people support the president, even as you try to distort the picture with my vampirism."

Malkin called for the internment of the Washington press corps, saying "it would be the best thing for this country."

Sources

• Kurtz, Howard "Bloggers question existence of storm ". Washington Post, August 29, 2005

This article features first-hand journalism by an UnNews correspondent.