Fred Barnes Still Thinks Bush Can Win Over 527-Drive-By Media

By gamecock Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Fred Barnes has written a very interesting piece suggesting how Bush might have acted during Katrina.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/632dob...

While I agree with many of the hindsight suggestions, I couldn't disagree more that Katrina was necessarily a political disaster or that an MSM media disaster could have been avoided in any event.

read on ...

Fred still lets the MSM drive his reality. Most Americans do not. Unfortunately, most GOP congressman also let the MSN drive their reality.

My beef with Barnes relates to one sentence:

"But Katrina also was a political disaster for the president. And Bush, given a year to think about it, realizes he could have avoided that."

1- That it was a political disaster requires one to believe that most Americans believe what the MSM says and then vote based on same.

2-There have been no elections since Katrina.

3-We heard how the Iraq war was a political disaster before the GOP victories in 2002 and 2004.

4-Fred lives in the beltway.

5-Fred imagines that if Bush would just hold his mouth right, he could fool the MSM into giving him positive coverage.

6-There is NOTHING Bush can do to make the MSM love him.

7-Events drive elections

8- One event is that in elections, voters have a choice between a liberal democrat and a conservative republican.

Other events are terror attacks or thwarted attacks.

These events lead to our victories.

The political defeats are those that GOP congressmen self inflict by buying into the fear from the negative MSM coverage.

The MSM paints a false narrative that at once scares the GOP from being conservatives between elections and explaining away actual liberal election losses as being due to anything except liberalism.

When will conservatives learn?

Cross-posted at http://devine-gamecock.townhall.com

http://dutchmeister.townhall.com/

http://dutchmeister.townhall.com/g/ea795bd9-3f21-4e75-864b-70b5d52b3b66

Bush's Katrina problem comes down to this by Oz

1) He is the president of the United States

2) New Orleans was in crisis and people were dying

3) He did not swoop in and save them

Now, you and I, as political junkies can argue that it was the Gov's fault or the Mayor's fault, but Joe Schmoe (and I'm talking Republicans and Democrats) look at it and say "How come you couldn't have gotten it done?"

Now, I know that one of the arguments is that the Gov didn't invite the feds in. The answer by the doubters to that is that what you do then is you moev all of your federal help right up to the border of Lousiana and then you get on National TV and say, "We're here. We're just waiting for the Gov to ask us to help." Then things go differently and not only does Bush get a win, but people get saved a whole lot faster.

Reply To This — User Info — #1

I think Joe Schmoe is smarter than the MSM and by gamecock

realizes that it was, incredibly,

the Hurricane

that did the killing, and that only as many as did died was a miracle due mainly to how fast the federal governnment, ie Coast Guard and the Nat Guard and individual Americans reacted.

Never mistake MSM story lines for reality or that most Americans do. If they did, the Dems would have been in power since 1972.

"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh

Reply To This — User Info — #2

Katrina was the worst natural disaster of our times... by NotSoBlueStater

... stuff was going to go wrong and people were going to die, for goodness sake. In a disaster of that magnitude there were only 1000 deaths -- which the MSM would have deemed brilliance by now if we were talking about the Kerry Administration. None of the deaths, by the way, resulted from a lack of FEMA food and water.

Bush would have been blamed regardless of what the government did or didn't do. There's been literally tons of good mythbusting work done already. People just don't care. Bush is a buffoon, so it must be his fault, right?

The saddest thing is that there were so many acts of heroism -- amounting to the greatest rescue operation in human history -- all ignored in pursuit of max political damage.

--
"It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race." - Chief Justice John Roberts

Reply To This — User Info — #3

5 - agreed by gamecock

"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh

Reply To This — User Info — #4

Katrina was a run of the mill by Achance

hurricane of the sort that can be expected anywhere on the Southeast Coast every year. There really were hurricanes before the GWB Administration, even before the Washington Administration. To the extent that it was a great disaster in NO, it was not a natural but rather a human disaster.

Corrupt and incompetent local officials allowed corrupt contractors to skimp on levee construction. Corrupt and incompetent local officials diverted federal levee funds to other purposes. Corrupt and incompetent local officials either stole much of the FEMA planning money or were too incompetent to carry out the disaster planning or a combination of the two - my money's on the latter.

In Vino Veritas

Reply To This — User Info — #5

it was the first time the levee broke by gamecock

"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh

Reply To This — User Info — #6

Levees made of chocolate offer little protection<nt> by BooBooKitty

________________________________________________________
Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes

Reply To This — User Info — #7

chocolate lasted 300 years? by gamecock

"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh

Reply To This — User Info — #8

I will guarantee you by Achance

that there was a very expensive federally funded plan to deal with levee overtopping or collapse. FEMA, DOD/NGB, DOT, EPA and sometimes other agencies have poured federal funds into the states for years for comprehensive disaster plans and for staffing "disaster management" offices. The good people of Nawlins either stole the money and didn't really have a plan, weren't competent to carry it out, or some combination of the two. My money's on the latter.

In Vino Veritas

Reply To This — User Info — #9

no doubt, and....so the govt had a plan, expensive no doubt by gamecock

Its liberals that trust expensive government plans. Not me. The American people, even including arguably the worst of the lot in the liberal democrat pubic dependency capitol of the Lower 48, got most of a large city evacuated and unharmed despite the levee break that had been 300 years in the making. talk about a "boy cried wolf" situation writ large. It was what wasn't planned, ie the spontaneous action and common sense of the American people that made us look so great to most of the world. The MSM version be damned. I have heard many raves from abroad about how much worse it would have been in any other country. Talking about the MSM version is like taking a cartoon seriously. I don't.

God Bless America

even School Bus Nagin

"If they attack us, it means we're winning." - Rush Limbaugh

Reply To This — User Info — #10

Redstate