Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Michael Brown a "Casualty" Department)

In what sense is Michael Brown a "casualty" of the hurricane? He still has his paycheck. He still has his office. He still has his job (sort of). He is still alive. He still has his house.

Nobody would ever accuse Elizabeth Bumiller of good taste, or of reportorial judgment. But this seems extreme even for her:

Casualty of Firestorm: Outrage, Bush and FEMA Chief - New York Times : By ELISABETH BUMILLER: Republicans had been pressing the White House for days to fire "Brownie," Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who had stunned many television viewers in admitting that he did not know until 24 hours after the first news reports that there was a swelling crowd of 25,000 people desperate for food and water at the New Orleans convention center. Mr. Brown, who was removed from his Gulf Coast duties on Friday, though not from his post as FEMA's chief, is the first casualty of the political furor.... With Democrats and Republicans caustically criticizing the performance of his agency, and with the White House under increasing attack for populating FEMA's top ranks with politically connected officials who lack disaster relief experience, Mr. Brown had become a symbol of President Bush's own hesitant response.

The president, long reluctant to fire subordinates, came to a belated recognition that his administration was in trouble for the way it had dealt with the disaster, many of his supporters say. One moment of realization occurred on Thursday of last week when an aide carried a news agency report from New Orleans into the Oval Office for him to see. The report was about the evacuees at the convention center.... Mr. Bush had been briefed that morning by his homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, who was getting much of his information from Mr. Brown and was not aware of what was occurring there. The news account was the first that the president and his top advisers had heard not only of the conditions at the convention center but even that there were people there at all.

"He's not a screamer," a senior aide said of the president. But Mr. Bush, angry, directed the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to find out what was going on. "The frustration throughout the week was getting good, reliable information," said the aide, who demanded anonymity so as not to be identified in disclosing inner workings of the White House. "Getting truth on the ground in New Orleans was very difficult."

Ummm... Watch the television?

If Mr. Bush was upset with Mr. Brown at that point, he did not show it. When he traveled to the Gulf Coast the next day, he stood with him and, before the cameras, cheerfully said, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."... Behind the president's public embrace of Mr. Brown was the realization within the administration that the director's ignorance about the evacuees had further inflamed the rage of the storm's poor, black victims and created an impression of a White House that did not care about their lives.

One prominent African-American supporter of Mr. Bush who is close to Karl Rove, the White House political chief, said the president did not go into the heart of New Orleans and meet with black victims on his first trip there, last Friday, because he knew that White House officials were "scared to death" of the reaction. "If I'm Karl, do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president as if we're living in Rwanda?" said the supporter, who spoke only anonymously because he did not want to antagonize Mr. Rove....

OK. Who is this? What African-Americans are (a) prominent, (b) supporters of George W. Bush, and (c) close to Karl Rove?

Mr. Bush, characteristically, did not officially dismiss Mr. Brown, instead calling him back to Washington to run FEMA while a crisis-tested Coast Guard commander, Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, was given oversight of the relief effort. The take-charge Admiral Allen, who commanded the Coast Guard's response up and down the Atlantic Seaboard after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, immediately appeared on television as the public face of the administration's response. In Baton Rouge, Mr. Brown appeared briefly at Mr. Chertoff's side before heading back to the capital, where, the secretary said, the director was needed for potential disasters. "We've got tropical storms and hurricanes brewing in the ocean," Mr. Chertoff said.

Comments

[ogmb]

They misspelled "murderer".

[christo]

I am not too familiar with the Vice Adm though I am afraid that the Bushies keep pulling out these men in uniform for wallpaper. I'd give Mr. Allen some face if he happens to criticize the lack of funding our homeland security agency the Coast Guard considering the last time the CG was in the news just a few weeks ago was how it too was being starved of money. Not enough glamour there but enough uniform and medals to pull out as needed.

[me]

Most of the national political press corps is hopelessly corrupt, and it is the corruption of courtiers. Compare the domestic to the international press coverage of Bush's photo ops this week. If the President stages a photo op with an elaborate, outrageously phony and staged set, props and costumed extras, and that also probably hinders disaster relief, the foreign press realize this might be newsworthy and they write it up. Certainly they wrote it up the second or third time they saw it. Same with California press and Schwarzeneggers phony pothole parties. They are so corrupt that I don't think they realize what they are. I could be wrong, they might be on the payroll. Regardless, they seem to write what they do because it they can do nothing else any longer. Do they even know what investigating, or even beat reporting is anymore? There was some Chinese dynasty that was overthrown. The revolutionaries were going through the palace rounding up the royal courtiers and asking them what they did. One man was cowering in the corner of a room and the revolutionaries asked him what he did. The courtier said he was The Master of the Horse Keepers. The revolutionaries asked him what that meant. The courtier said he didn't know. Many people in the press covering national affairs are just one step away from that state.

[robert waldmann]

Yeah prominent Black friends of Rove are rare. However, that's not the most absurd anonymous sourcin. Is it possible to doubt that the senior aid and Mr Card are one and the same person ?

""He's not a screamer," a senior aide said of the president. But Mr. Bush, angry, directed the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to find out what was going on."

This as anonymous as the high foreign policy offial who "asked the press not to use her name" (She was NSA then).

This is beyond Kabuki, it is No. Kabuki is No for the masses. Only the true cognoscenti can understand why it is important to say a source is anonymous while clearly identifying the source.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Bumiller is a steno. I have it on good authority that she altered her surname from Bushmiller some years ago.

[fercryinoutloud]

Prominent A-A's who support Bush & are close to Rove? Clarence Thomas. A few bought off "journalists" and "opinion columnists".

I thought I'd toss my cookies to hear Brown described as a "casualty". The worst thing that will happen to him is he'll be allowed to resign and go "fail upwards" to some lobbying firm somewhere. He's going to go off and have a drinkie-pooh and a lie-down to get over the terrible stress of being held accountable for his own actions.

Meanwhile, I can see orphaned children on the TV screen. Watch bodies floating in an open sewer. Read accounts of families split up and spread across jam-packed shelters in Texas. Listen to Barbara Bush *LAUGH* at the people in distress and despair, as though they had planned to be left penniless, homelesss and unwanted.

These people are morally depraved. Horrible things are going to happen regardless when a massive storm bears down on a heavily populated area. The Bushes and their crony friends simply don't give a damn about other human beings. *That* is the difference between a hideous disaster and a crime against humanity.

And be assured, they have committed just such an atrocity.

fercryinoutloud

[pragmatic_realist]

Ah, yes. Surely the little father does not know what is going on in his kingdom. Surely if we can make him see the truth he will do the right thing for his people.

[pragmatic_realist]

Elizabeth Bumiller's great grandmother was the reporter on Court Affairs for the St. Petersburg Times.

Also:"The frustration throughout the week was getting good, reliable information," said the aide, who demanded anonymity so as not to be identified in disclosing inner workings of the White House. "Getting truth on the ground in New Orleans was very difficult."

I guess they had their cable disconnected.

[Crabb]

Prominent African American, close to Rove? Thats easy. Condi Rice. They're in the same Bible Study.

[ash]

Prominent African American, close to Rove? Thats easy. Condi Rice. They're in the same Bible Study.

Goood call! But she's not exactly a 'supporter' is she? I mean, you're probably right, but the misdirection there is massive.

I couldn't decide between Alan Keyes, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, but you're much closer. Doesn't help that I don't think of Condi as actually being black. Feh. Forgot Malkin too.

ash
[''s funny how one expects liars [Bumiller] to be mostly honest.']

[Anna Haynes]

"...the aide, who demanded anonymity so as not to be identified in disclosing inner workings of the White House"

right.
God this is funny.
Needs an acronym though, since this 'reason' will be getting lots of play. DIWOTWH?

So who has the clout to have a little talk with (and get answers from) Ms. Bumiller? And what *is* her history? (besides the name change)

Seems to me it's time for a couple of additions to newspaper structure. We have the editorial page, and the Op-Ed page; much of the latter should move to a Shills page, and there needs to be a "Gummint Sez" page to move the stenography out of the News section.

[Larry Yudelson]

I'll quote my wife here. After reading today's NYTimes article about Padillia, she said: "I feel stupider."

This is the week I cancel my subscription and join the freeloaders.

[ogmb]

"Mr. Bush, characteristically, did not officially dismiss Mr. Brown, instead calling him back to Washington"

To my knowledge it wasn't Dumbya but Cherkoff who recalled Brownie?

[theorajones]

Wow, talk about your Freudian slips: "If I'm Karl, do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president as if we're living in Rwanda?"

I don't know about you all, but for me two of the most powerful scenes in that movie were when all the white guests were evacuated from the hotel and the black people left behind to die, and Nick Nolte's scene in the bar where he says to Paul that he and his family will not be rescued because, "we think you're dirt...you're not even a n****."

I can only imagine their fear that Bush would say something like his mother said in the astrodome ("this is working out very well for them").

I can't imagine why Karl Rove would fear that Bush unscripted might say "message: we think you're dirt."

[db3]

One possibility for the African-American supporter is Herman Cain. Rove may well have recruited him for a Senate race in GA. The Rwanda reference is probably not an accident. The White House could feed Cain's name to a pliant reporter thus giving them an opportunity to push the line that the citizens of New Orleans are irresponsible and largely to blame for their situation. This line of attack resonates well with the GOP base.