Katrina: One year later. The presstitutes in the Left wing media are still at it.
 

STORM, SOUND & FURY


Published August 29, 2006 --

"Marking the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush
declared today a National Day of Remembrance. He might have also called
it a National Day of Misinformation - because the story of that killer
storm remains as distorted as ever.
No one can deny the horrific loss of life or the tens of billions in
property damage. One of America's most treasured urban gems, New
Orleans, was deluged and all but destroyed. As Bush said yesterday, the
damage was "unimaginable."

Yet the response - by residents and the government - was hardly the
cataclysmic failure that it was made out to be. And that news outlets,
and Democrats, continue to insist it was.

Take those breathless early reports of snipers, roving gangs, rapes and
mass deaths. They set a tone that endures still.

But guess what?

Most of it never happened.

Likewise, Bush team efforts were (and still are) portrayed as an
unmitigated disaster, proof that Bush & Co. aren't just incompetent,
but also lack compassion, particularly for poor blacks. A photo of Bush
surveying damage from his plane rather than the ground fuels such
claims.

"If the bungled federal response to Hurricane Katrina called into
question the president's competence," The New York Times wrote
yesterday in a front-page editorial disguised as a news story, "that
Air Force One snapshot, coupled with scenes on the ground of victims
who were largely poor and black, called into question something equally
important to Mr. Bush: his compassion."

Democrats are milking the theme: "We know the storm was a tragedy,"
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said last week, "but a bigger tragedy
is how the federal government responded." New York Sen. Chuck Schumer
readily admits that Democratic candidates for the Senate cite the storm
every chance they get.

The truth? As former reporter Lou Dolinar wrote on these pages Sunday,
the response "may have been the largest, most successful aerial
search-and-rescue operation in history."

The Coast Guard, state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and
National Guard rescued 70,000 people. They pre-positioned food and
supplies and set up medical facilities that treated 5,000 victims (and
delivered seven babies).

Sure, mistakes were made: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, for example,
didn't have an evacuation plan. But Katrina's enduring narrative - that
Bush blew it - is nearly as destructive to the picture of what happened
as the storm itself.

Officials have much to learn from Katrina about how better to prepare
for disasters, both natural and man-made.

But the critics - and the media - also have much to learn.

Question is: Will they?"