Bughouse Square

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'Heckuva Job' Brownie Rides Again

With the anniversary of the Katrina disaster upon us, it seems that Michael Brown has been making the talk show circuit apologizing to the American people for repeating White House talking points that he knew to be lies.  Well, they did after all throw him to the wolves. 

But this gives me an opportunity to re-present the Daily Show spiel on the subject of talking points:

Conventional Wisdom (lousy audio)

While we're at it, here's what The Daily Show was saying about the president's spin control before Katrina:

A Symbolic Mom-off

And also afterward:

Meet the F**kers
Jon, What is your Obsession with the Horrible Humanitarian Catastrophe?

Meanwhile, over at Crooks and Liars, they've dug up a case-in-point of what it is Brownie is apologizing for:

With All Due Respect

posted by: JohnnyAngel at 08/30/06 05:34 | link | comments |

A Shilly Reception

A year after Cindy Sheehan's highly publicized camp-out in Crawford, Texas to meet the president and ask him to his face why her son died, a parallel story cropped up of one Rocky Vaccarella, a victim who lost everything in Katrina, and who was traveling to Washington D.C. in his FEMA-issued trailer in an attempt to meet with the president and to give him the Vox Populi.  OneGoodMove.org has the story ala The Daily Show:

Rocky Road

Vaccarella went all that way to lodge complaints and was not only seen by the president but had only the vaguest of criticism (that "the job was not done") and was indeed effulgent in his praise.  Bullshit detectors went off all over the blogosphere.  Here's one example:

If it Sounds too good to be True

The fact that Vaccarella was once an unsuccessful GOP candidate for a minor office doesn't seem to be as telling as some critics seem to feel it should be.  Party affiliation itself isn't evidence that you're involved in a stage-managed publicity stunt.  What I do find is suspect is the fact that Vaccarella's FEMA trailer does not appear to be the same model as everyone else's:

Mismatch

If you look at the picture you'll see that Vaccarella's trailer is actually labelled as an 'honorary' FEMA trailer.  It certainly looks like a better one than the immobile ones that people other than Vaccarella are actually having to live in.  Where did a man who lost everything get a trailer for use in this highly publicized sojourn?  There could be all kinds of perfectly good explanations -- that he didn't really lose 'everything,' that he passed the hat among supporters, that it was donated for this event.  But it is being reported as a FEMA trailer. 

Big deal, right?  It's merely serving as a symbol.  But upon examination, the trailer actually symbolizes something other than Vaccarella's connection to the people actually living in the FEMA trailers.  He has resources to live and travel in a better trailer, but the use of the trailer is an implicit claim of membership with the most downtrodden of the Katrina victims who live in famously flimsy trailers and do not have the wherewithal to take a road trip.  So, the trailer actually stands as concrete evidence of Vaccarella's insincerity.

Sadly, only The Daily Show seemed to be skeptical about this story at all.

posted by: JohnnyAngel at 08/25/06 06:43 | link | comments (1) |

Editing What I Say

The joke delivered by Bush's "inner voice" at the White House Correspondent's Dinner was, "The Media really ticks me off, the way they try to embarass me by not editing what I say."

Recently, Bush was really off his stride in his response to the ruling that he had violated federal law in ordering wiretaps without court approval.  Subsequently, the news program Countdown did just as the joke said.  Rather than editing Bush's comments at a press conference down to sound bites, as is the usual mode of news programs largely motivated by the need to keep up with the low attention spans of the average viewer, they chose to air a painfully awkward segment of the conference with Bush stammering like a kid put on the spot trying to explain why he doesn't have his homework.

posted by: JohnnyAngel at 08/21/06 05:30 | link | comments (3) |