Despite an occasional line likely to raise a conservative's eyebrow ("Dyson may be an Obama-loving, Bush-loathing liberal who has spent his life opposing American wars and fighting for the protection of natural resources, but he brooks no ideology," for example) writer Nicholas Dawidoff's 8,200-word March 29 New York Times magazine feature, "The Civil Heretic," on world-renowned physic
Hurricane Katrina
By Tom Blumer | January 11, 2009 | 8:35 PM EST
When historians look back in wonder at how a long-established publication like the New York Times could have declined from its virtual king-of-the-world status in mid-2002 to its Bush-deranged, 85%-devalued shadow of its former self, they will surely make a few stops at Maureen Dowd's twice-weekly, lost-in-another-world columns (the Dowd picture is from the Times's web site).
Today's offering from Dowd (HT Hot Air Headlines) is intended to be a final figurative kick in the shins at George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, something she admits to fantasizing about having done to the Vice President this week when she had opportunities.
But the Dowd diatribe really ends up as a self-portrayal of someone who deeply imbibed the kool-aid her paper dished out over the past seven years and is beyond ever letting go, and serves as a microcosm of what the Old Gray Lady has done to itself in that same timeframe:
By Tom Blumer | December 29, 2008 | 11:26 PM EST
Well, it seems that the folks at Vanity Fair realized that they won't have George W. Bush to kick around any more. So they decided to launch the journalistic equivalent of thermonuclear war against him in an attempt to get its shot at a "draft of history."
In a 14 web-page tome (the photo at the top right is at its beginning) that fancies itself an "oral history," the magazine hauls out every criticism, real or imagined, hurled at the president during the past eight years. It reminds everyone that the media's favorite stereotype of conservatives and Republicans is that they're dumb (I guess Ike's orchestration of D-Day was some kind of accident, and George W. Bush's MBA -- he is the first president to hold one -- was some kind of gift from Poppy).
Sadly, the magazine finds a few former administration officials to pile on. One of them likens Bush to Sarah Palin (that's supposed to be an insult). We're left with the long-discredited meme of Dick Cheney as puppet master and Bush as impotent since Katrina (then how did Bush get that Iraq Surge past everyone and make it stick anyway?).
All you really need to know to spare yourself a truly painful read is what is in the tease paragraph after the headline. Brace yourself:
By Clay Waters | September 15, 2008 | 3:53 PM EDT
New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff's "Reflections: New Orleans and China" showed that he shared the same affliction as Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman -- gauging the success of the strong central power of Communist China by looking at its shining and efficient surface, without questioning its effect on the nation's unseen citizenry. For good measure, he even held Ronald Reagan responsible for both the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and last year's deadly Minneapolis bridge collapse.Ouroussoff wrote:
For Americans watching events unfold on television late last month, the arduous evacuation of New Orleans and the grandeur of the Olympic Games couldn't have made for a starker contrast.
However one feels about its other policies, the Chinese government is clearly not afraid to invest in the future of its cities. The array of architecture it created for the Beijing Olympics was only part of a mosaic of roads, bridges, tunnels, canals, subway lines and other projects that have transformed a medieval city of wood and brick into a modern metropolis overnight.
By Noel Sheppard | September 2, 2008 | 2:35 PM EDT
For almost a week, practically foaming at the mouth media members scared the heck out of the American people presaging doom and gloom in New Orleans as well as rising oil and gas prices all at the hands of a hurricane that hadn't even entered the Gulf of Mexico yet.
Of course, let's not forget the reports about Hurricane Gustav destroying the Republican National Convention thereby damaging John McCain's chances of winning the White House.
Now, as Gustav has been down-graded to a tropical storm, having caused less damage in New Orleans than anyone anticipated, America is quickly getting back to normal likely much to the disappointment of those on the left and in the media that hoped for a replay of Hurricane Katrina weeks before Election Day.
And, as Bloomberg reported Tuesday, energy prices are plummeting (photo courtesy CNN Money):
By Rusty Weiss | September 2, 2008 | 11:34 AM EDT
Nobody would ever hope or pray for a hurricane to strike at the expense of their political opponent. Or would they? Well, maybe Michael Moore would. In fact, he did, as has already been discussed on this site.
By Noel Sheppard | August 30, 2008 | 12:39 PM EDT
Unlike three years ago, the good folks of New Orleans are busily preparing for a hurricane days before it is scheduled to arrive.
This includes massive evacuations transpiring even though the storm is not supposed to hit until Monday.
Assuming these preparations are successful, and Gustav powers the same punch as Katrina without causing the same devastation to life and property, will the White House get media's praise?
Consider what the New York Times reported Saturday (emphasis added):
By Geoffrey Dickens | May 28, 2008 | 5:18 PM EDT
All "Big Three" network evening news anchors appeared on Wednesday's "Today" show to promote a simulcast to fight cancer but ended up wringing their hands about Scott McClellan's charges that the press was too soft on the White House in the run up to the Iraq War.
"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric accused the White House of "strong arm tactics," and complained, "There was such a significant march to war and people who questioned it very early on...were considered patriotic."
When pushed by "Today" host Matt Lauer, "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams charged:
In Katrina the evidence was right next to us. Sadly we saw fellow Americans, in some cases, floating past, face down. We knew what had just happened. We weren't allowed to that kind of proximity with the weapons inspectors. I was in Kuwait for the build up of the war and yes we heard from the Pentagon, on my cell phone, the minute they heard us report something that they didn't like. The tone of that time was quite extraordinary.
For his part "ABC World News" anchor Charlie Gibson said he felt like all the questions were asked but declared:
By Geoffrey Dickens | May 28, 2008 | 11:15 AM EDT
NBC's "Today" show, on Wednesday morning, led with former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's book as Matt Lauer declared it a "bombshell," and Tim Russert built up McClellan's credibility as he trumpeted, "This is not Moveon.org."
After a breathless accounting of the "scathing" and "searing" revelations in the McClellan book from David Gregory, Lauer and Russert dismissed Karl Rove's criticism of the former press secretary and underlined the impact the book would have on the election:
TIM RUSSERT: Karl Rove was out last night, basically relegating his position as unimportant. That he was not in the loop. He was not a key adviser. But the fact is, it's gonna be very difficult to diminish someone who was in that room, who was in that position for as long as he was.
MATT LAUER: And here we've got a president with historically low approval ratings, he can't run for reelection so this, is this just a parting shot on, on a departing president or will this have some impact on the fall election between Barack Obama, it seems, and John McCain?
RUSSERT: It will fuel the debate about the war in Iraq, whether or not we should have gone into Iraq. John McCain said yes, Obama said no. I believe that this will be expert testimony used by the Democrats against their incumbent president.
By Tim Graham | May 25, 2008 | 8:28 AM EDT
In a Sunday review of the HBO film "Recount," Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales raves over the film, and over how much greater America would have been with President Gore:
By Clay Waters | April 25, 2008 | 5:30 PM EDT
New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller followed John McCain on his trip to the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which suffered grievously because of Hurricane Katrina, and filed a harshly cynical story to nytimes.com Thursday afternoon -- much of which was removed from the version that eventually appeared on Friday morning's front page. From Bumiller's Thursday afternoon filing:
By Noel Sheppard | January 12, 2008 | 5:28 PM EST
In the midst of all the recent global warming alarmism, have you considered the role that the "Hollywoodation" of weather reporting has played?
After all, much as news reporting has become more and more geared towards titillation in the past couple of decades, so has the media's presentation of climate events, especially extreme ones like Hurricane Katrina.
With this in mind, it only seems logical that the over-hyped coverage of all things weather-related has added to the nation's fear of global warming irrespective of whether or not such fears are warranted.
Such was certainly suggested in an article published in Saturday's Toronto Star which accused American media of being prone to "storm porn" (emphasis added throughout, h/t to NB reader Linda):