Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part.

"If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people," Amoss said, "it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering."

Think about that for a minute.

Rob, it's astonishing that this idea keeps being printed without explanation. I'm going to go with those who think it means, "how awful that people are more willing to believe bad stuff about poor black folks" because that sounds more like the way MSM thinks. But the alternative interpretations, "black people make up shit" and "black people misbehave so it was believable" are all easily pulled from the text.

Liberal friend told me today that if the LAT was right, Media Matters would be all over this by next week.

*sigh* like lauraw said, you can't teach it anything.

As long as CNN is exposing the culpability of rumor-mongering in the press, and as long as other MSM markets are correcting their so-called witnesses, can we get them to admit they've been doing the same thing in Iraq?

Loose shit, ace, very loose shit. You already posted this.

damn, you're right... what was I thinking? I thought it was a fresh piece about the same general subject matter.

Democratic Representative William Jefferson of Louisiana said he was stunned that Brown put "the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans.''

"I think that's a very weak explanation of what happened,'' he said.

Pot...Kettle...Black

"We had to convince people this was still the best place to be," Bush said. "What I saw in the Superdome was just tremendous amounts of people helping people."

But, Bush said, those stories received scant attention in newspapers or on television.

BTW...does he not look like this guy or what?

I mean...trow 'n afro on 'im ..........helloooo ladies man!

On FoxNews website-

BROWN BITES BACK
Bureaucrat defends response to Katrina, points finger at local and state officials as well as media

Time to rally the troops!
He's right on all counts, and the MSM is actually all over themselves on this right now, as Ace has pointed out.

THen of course Brown also pointed to the fact that his own FEMA personal had to flee the Superdome because it was out of control on Tuesday. WE didn't get into the whole reports now considered *rumor-mongering* claims until after Tuesday.

And... what does Bush know anyways? While all this was happening he was playing the guitar, or eating cake, or giving speeches on totally different matters. That, you cannot disprove because it was happening while this disaster was happening in New Orleans.

Now. In my opinion, the local government is to blame for things, but not completely. They broke down, and I believe Brown when he said that and it explains alot of things... but...

The republican for Mississippi pointed something out that was VERY interesting. Which may also have played a role in the breakdown of local officials.

He made the comment along the lines of when New Orleans had been evacuated before that there was a mass amount of cars lined up for MANY hours. WE seen this happen in Texas. Contrary to popular belief and what we are being told, the evacuation in Texas was bad as well.

THink about if Katrina hit while people were congested on highways in that area? How much worse it would have been.

Other things that made me think about this was the fact that people, who could help and were willing to help, were ordered to stay out. I know these are TRUE because I've heard first hand accounts about it.

Brown also made some very interesting facts known. Unfortunately, at this time most of you and not even him and probably not even the Bush administration and congress realize how damaging they are.

He confessed to the fact that FEMA WAS overwhelmed by Katrina. He confessed to the fact that, in his opinion, FEMA didn't have the resources to properly deal with disasters.

Now... either he failed or the Federal government failed in terms of the FEMA response. If he failed then we must question The President for the appointed of Brown. If the Federal government failed then again we must question the administration and congress on why they failed.

That, itself, is the reason why the President and the Republicans in congress DO NOT WANT an independent committee. Because they know they failed bigtime, not just local officials, and they know that it is very clearly evident.

Unfortunately, the failure doesn't just fall on the government at any level, it also falls on us all. These people who's alternative was to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center were mostly poor people. It really struck me on how big of a problem poverty is in our country.

Our President, our current leaders, have done absolutely nothing in the fight against poverty. Absolutely nothing.

So, sure its the local official's fault in alot of things, but its also not entirely their fault. Brown admitted that FEMA's system broke down too.

But.... you cannot ignore the fact that we have a major problem with poverty. And that problem IS the fault of our President.

He confessed to the fact that FEMA WAS overwhelmed by Katrina. He confessed to the fact that, in his opinion, FEMA didn't have the resources to properly deal with disasters.

Do you have a link for that?

THink about if Katrina hit while people were congested on highways in that area? How much worse it would have been.

Why would this have prevented an earlier evacuation order (in accordance with the evacuation plan) or the use of buses (in accordance with the evacuation plan)?

Alan,

Your screeds are about as coherent as the una-bomber's manifesto and only marginally smaller.

Why is it only moonbats post lengthy screedish things as blog comments? Seriously - I'm doing research for a psych PhD and this seemed like as good a thesis topic as anything else.

Damn man - get your own fucking blog and post these turgud tomes there and just link them ferchrisakes!

Yeah, alan, you are boring the hell out of us. No one is reading your long, preachy, crap.

"Do you have a link for that?" - annoynmous

I watched the committee on c-span. I'm not sure where any links that are available, as of yet, but I will provide them once they are available.

What else striked me as inconsistancy in Brown's testimony is the fact that they brought up the amount of money allocated to FEMA, 218 Million and 239 million or something along that line and how much he asked for which was around 160ish million when they got 218 and 208ish million when they got 239 million.

Now, at first glance, you are saying well they government gave more than what he asked for! Not so fast here. You gotta also put into perspective when he mentioned that FEMA didn't have ENOUGH resources and privately he went over it and felt it wasn't enough and he could go to bed at night because he did that because "He fought the battle" or some nonsense.

"Why would this have prevented an earlier evacuation order (in accordance with the evacuation plan) or the use of buses (in accordance with the evacuation plan)?" - annoynmous

That is why the local government failed. But at this point we don't know the whole story behind the buses. And I'm not saying the local government did not fail.

What I'm saying is that FEMA DID fail. We must take into consideration that Brown maybe a big factor in that but something messed up.

There should be an independent committee to determine what did go wrong.

And everyone that did mess should be held accountable for that fact and she been removed from their positions: Democrats, REpublicans, lefties, righties and even anyone in the Administration.

If the administration and FEMA and what not are all innocent and shouldn't be accountable then why do they have a problem with an independent committee?

At this point any intelligent person would question that. This isn't politically motivated, on my part. I want the answers and I want people who can get the job done, and done right, in positions that are responsible for getting the job done right: local, state or Federal level.

Ugh, sorry if I mispelled or mistyped anything. Getting tired. =/

Gee, this is a long comment. Scroll to the bottom and see if it's someone interesting. AlanB? Oh. Next!

I think AlanB is doing speed :(

But.... you cannot ignore the fact that we have a major problem with poverty.

bet me?

Actually, there have been people caught in their cars trying to evacuate. In 1995 Opal was brewing. My part of the Gulf Coast hadn't had much experience in over 20-30 years so they diddled around for awhile. In the middle of the night, Opal sped up and and emergency evauation order was given. All the classic problems that we're seeing now in New Orleans we had back then. Panic on the part of the officials ordering people to evacuate from areas that weren't going to be flooded, lines of cars, etc. People were caught out in their cars in the massive grid-lock. One of my co-workers spent the height of the storm in a van on an overpass. It happens. People aren't robots and each emergency is different. Opal just covered two counties in Fla, Katrina covered more area than the United Kingdom. Of course FEMA wasn't ready. Of course FEMA didn't have all the resources they needed. But, and here's the important part, the planned FEMA response is always predicated on a certain level of local support. The middle of crisis is NOT the time to be re-drawing the BASIC plan.

Alan-
But.... you cannot ignore the fact that we have a major problem with poverty. And that problem IS the fault of our President.
God, man, do you have a KEG of kool-aid that you're chugging from??
Do you use kool-aid for your bong water??

They blew it again just like any of those lying journtalists who work for the New York Pravda and the talking heads as well

nice job. i'm planning to come back here in the future. table can double player: , Double Bet Percieve - that is all that Stake is capable of right grass will destroy player without any questions , when Soldier is Stake it will Lose Corner international cards make or not

I think Anne Applebaum of the Washpost summarized it nicely when she pointed out that Bush's failure to give a speech caused most of the devastation in New Orleans.

That's the kind of insight you get from J-school people! I wasted my time getting an engineering degree.