I’m watching Anderson Cooper lose it right now. He just went bananas on Mary L. Landrieu, the Senator from Louisiana – she was talking a lot of wishy-washy policy and Andy just totally faced her by telling a story about watching rats eating a woman’s corpse in the middle of the street. And Anderson’s not even in New Orleans, but in Waveland, a ravaged area of Mississippi. After returning from commercial break, he had to take a second on camera to compose himself, and then choked back tears throughout a long interview with a couple who had just found their baby after being forced to leave her in a hospital four days before. “Reporters are suppossed to remain distanced,” Cooper said. “There’s just no distance in Waveland anymore.” In general, it seems like the anchors on CNN are starting to get not only emotional, but angry. Earlier today, both Kyra Phillips and Aaron Brown were openly, aggressively critiquing the Bush administration’s handling of the situation. It always feels good to see anchors break out of their shells in times of crisis, and admit to being real human beings with passions and opinions. This kind of anger on CNN is almost as shocking as the images that are spawning it.
(Via TV Squad.)
New Orleans Died for Bush’s Sins:
No, this is the time for politics, none better, because I can tell you just from being out of NY a few days that a lot of people in this country are shocked and sobered by New Orleans, but they’re also worried and pissed off. They’re making the connection between the money, manpower, and resources expended in Iraq and how raggedy-ass the rescue effort has been in the Gulf. If you don’t say it now when people’s nerves are raw and they’re paying full attention, it’ll be too late once the waters receded and the media-emoting “healing process” begins.
[…]
Look at 9/11. There were tough questions about the breakdown of communications at Ground Zero, the lateness in scrambling fighter jets once the hijacked planes were heading toward NY and DC, Bush’s strange behavior on that day, etc., and in the aftermath those questions were considered inappropriate, “divisive.” We needed to grieve first, heal; and then the tough questions could be raised.
But they weren’t. As months passed, the focus was on overthrowing the Taliban and avenging 9/11, and tough questions were taken off the table as the drumbeat was about the Nation Moving Forward. The media fell into zombie lockstep behind the invigorated Bush agenda. It took the 9/11 widows and esp the “Jersey Girls” to push and shame the Congress, the media, and the administration into launching a proper investigation, otherwise it would have all slid into the memory hole apart from the iconic images of the smoking towers before their collapse.
(Via James Wolcott.)
If you want really angry people, here are some of the people still in New Orleans. In the richest country in the world, this is disgraceful. (Via Oliver Willis.)
And one final quote, but this one’s from a while back:
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” — Grover Norquist
Congratulations, Grover. You’ve starved government to the size where you’ve facilitated thousands of drownings.