Pelosi: Bush, "Oblivious, dangerous"

Closet case, if I ever saw one.

I understand what you claim it means. I don't have a dog in that fight (pun intended).

I haven't attacked the avatar, but rather his attempt to exploit it. Do you claim to understand posting the Ah-nold at the beach picture? Is that relevant?

Setanta wrote:

I haven't attacked the avatar, but rather his attempt to exploit it. Do you claim to understand posting the Ah-nold at the beach picture? Is that relevant?

I understand it perfectly. You don't?

Chrissee wrote:

Closet case, if I ever saw one.

Only in your dreams, Chrissee.

Setanta wrote:

I understand what you claim it means. I don't have a dog in that fight (pun intended).

holy smokes in another topic you said you were the dog - LOL :wink:

Setanta wrote:

I haven't attacked the avatar, but rather his attempt to exploit it. Do you claim to understand posting the Ah-nold at the beach picture? Is that relevant?

You know, it's not funny when you have to explain it. So I won't.

Ticomaya wrote:

Chrissee wrote:

Closet case, if I ever saw one.

Only in your dreams, Chrissee.

I am not the one having dreams about Ahnold and digging up beefcake photos of him. LOL

Media ignored, mischaracterized Pelosi's account of Bush query on federal response to Katrina: "What didn't go right?"


Numerous media outlets have mischaracterized or ignored entirely House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) account of how, during a conversation with her at the White House, President Bush allegedly demonstrated that he was, in Pelosi's words, "oblivious" to the federal government's failures in responding to the threat and subsequent destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.

As outlets such as the Associated Press and Scripps Howard News Service have reported, Pelosi said at a September 7 press conference that in a meeting with Bush the previous day, she had pressed him on whether he would fire Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Brown because of "all that didn't go right last week [in New Orleans]." According to Pelosi, Bush replied: "What didn't go right?" Reporting the exchange, Pelosi described Bush as "oblivious, in denial, [and] dangerous."

Pelosi's full account, as aired on the September 7 edition of the CBS Evening News:

PELOSI: When I said to the president that he should fire Michael Brown, he said, "Why would I do that?" I said, "Because of all that went wrong, with all that didn't go right last week." And he said, "What didn't go right?" Oblivious, in denial, dangerous.

But other media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), mischaracterized Pelosi by reporting her description of Bush as "oblivious" and "dangerous," but omitting her report of their exchange or any indication of what had prompted her assessment.

For example, Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse reported in the September 8 New York Times article:

From Democratic leaders on the floor of Congress, to a speech by the Democratic National Committee chairman at a meeting of the National Baptist Convention in Miami, to four morning television interviews by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrats offered what was shaping up as the most concerted attack that they had mounted on the White House in the five years of the Bush presidency.

"Oblivious. In denial. Dangerous," Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the House minority leader, said of President Bush as she stood in front of a battery of uniformed police officers and firefighters in a Capitol Hill ceremony that had originally been scheduled to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Americans should now harbor no illusions about the government's ability to respond effectively to disasters," she said. "Our vulnerabilities were laid bare."

Still other media ignored the press conference entirely. For example, unlike the CBS Evening News, neither ABC's World News Tonight nor the NBC Nightly News mentioned Pelosi on their September 7 newscasts. The Los Angeles Times also failed to make any mention of Pelosi's September 7 remarks.

CNN, Fox News, and The Washington Times also reported Pelosi's comments, though they offered comments only on Pelosi's conduct and not Bush's. After airing Pelosi's retelling of her conversation with Bush on the September 7 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN congressional correspondent Ed Henry repeated for emphasis not Bush's question suggesting "oblivious[ness]" to Pelosi but, rather, Pelosi's subsequent remark: "Nancy Pelosi there, suggesting that the commander in chief is dangerous to the American people." Henry then noted Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman's "tough statement" in response, concluding that "there's real partisanship digging in here."

On the September 7 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News congressional correspondent Brian Wilson preceded a clip of Pelosi with a comment that also focused on Pelosi rather than Bush. "Nancy Pelosi is so angry, she did something quite unusual in official Washington: She recounted for reporters her private conversation with the president," Wilson said.Similarly, The Washington Times reported in a September 8 article that Pelosi "lashed out at Mr. Bush ... taking the unusual action of recounting her private conversation with the president."

According to The Washington Times report, written by Bill Sammon and Stephan Dinan, White House press secretary Scott McClellan disputed Pelosi's account of her conversation with Bush:

Asked whether Mrs. Pelosi's version of her conversation with Mr. Bush was an "accurate portrayal," Mr. McClellan replied: "No, it's not." He said, "The president was just wanting to know what she was most concerned about."

After McClellan again stated in a September 8 White House press briefing that Pelosi's account was "not an accurate characterization" of her conversation with Bush, and CNN anchor Kyra Philips relayed McClellan's version of events to Pelosi on the September 8 edition of CNN's Live From..., Pelosi reiterated her account of the meeting with Bush and said of McClellan's response: "That's absolutely not true. Mr. McClellan wasn't there, so he couldn't possibly know."

Ticomaya wrote:

Setanta wrote:

I haven't attacked the avatar, but rather his attempt to exploit it. Do you claim to understand posting the Ah-nold at the beach picture? Is that relevant?

You know, it's not funny when you have to explain it. So I won't.

It's not funny under any circumstances--just pathetic.

I haven't attacked the avatar, but rather his attempt to exploit it. Do you claim to understand posting the Ah-nold at the beach picture? Is that relevant?

Setanta wrote:

I haven't attacked the avatar, but rather his attempt to exploit it. Do you claim to understand posting the Ah-nold at the beach picture? Is that relevant?

Everything is relevant if you choose to make it so and irrelevant if that is your inclination towards interpretation.

Rogers Cadenhead

Friday, September 09, 2005

Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans

As the situation grew steadily worse in New Orleans last week, you might have wondered why people didn't just leave on foot. The Louisiana Superdome is less than two miles from a bridge that leads over the Mississippi River out of the city.

The answer: Any crowd that tried to do so was met by suburban police, some of whom fired guns to disperse the group and seized their water.

Around 500 people stuck in downtown New Orleans after the storm banded together for self-preservation, making sure the oldest and youngest among them were taken care of before looking after their own needs.

Two San Francisco paramedics who were staying in the French Quarter for a convention have written a first-hand account that describes their appalling treatment at the hands of Louisiana police, a story confirmed today by the San Francisco Chronicle, UPI, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

When buses charted by the group to escape New Orleans never showed up, they camped out beside a police command center on Canal Street, believing it was the best place to get aid, protection, and information. They were told they could not stay there and should leave the city on foot over Highway 90, which crosses the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the suburb of Gretna, a city of 17,500 people.

Running out of food and water, they walked to the bridge, growing in number to around 800 people as word spread of a safe way out:

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City.

In an interview with UPI, Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson confirmed that his department shut down the bridge to pedestrians: "If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."

The increasingly desperate group set up camp on the New Orleans side of the bridge, where they were seen by several media outlets, until they were chased off at gunpoint by Gretna police:

Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The paramedics believe that race played a factor in the decision to block evacuees on foot. Gretna's population is 56 percent white and 36 percent black, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.

The real key to showing support is sending a letter to a representative other than your own, whose ideas you admire.

Sturgis wrote:

The real key to showing support is sending a letter to a representative other than your own, whose ideas you admire.

Do you ever post anything but irrelevant non-sequiturs?