The Real Looters of Katrina: The Left-Wing Media

Ben Stein:

What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.

They used the storm and its attendant sorrows to continue their endless attack on George W. Bush. Wildly inflated stories about the number of dead and missing, totally made up old wives' tales of racism, breathless accounts of Bush's neglect that are utterly devoid of truth and of historical context -- this is what the mainstream media gave us. The use of floating corpses, of horror stories of plagues, the sad faces of refugees, the long-faced phony accusations of intentional neglect and racism -- anything is grist for the media's endless attempts to undermine the electorate's choice last November. It is sad, but true that the media will use even the most heart breaking truths -- and then add total inventions -- to try to weaken and then evict from office a man who has done nothing wrong, but has instead turned himself inside out to help the real victims.

In the meantime, George Bush does not lash out, does not attack those who falsely accuse him of the most horrible acts and neglect. Instead, he doggedly goes on helping the least among us. I don't know how he does it, but we are very lucky he does. As for truth, it eventually may be salvaged from the flooded neighborhoods of The Crescent City, but not as long as there is a lie to use to hurt an honest man trying to do the best he can, and hundreds of thousands of brave, tireless men and women who do more than point fingers and tell tales. The Katrina story is a disgrace to the people who are "reporting" it while pouring gasoline on a fire. They and their crusade against George Bush are the real stories, and they are dismal ones.

Watching Geraldo Rivera use stranded babies as human shields between stints as ersatz rescue worker was disgusting, but watching the CNN talking heads waste the time of people who had real work to do with their endless liberal inanities was still worse.

With all those well-coifed dandies flitting about the scene, why exactly didn't the media crews start transporting people out of the area with their equipment? They had trucks, boats, and even helicopters to spare. Why didn't they take some of the babies out of harm's way, at least?

We know the answer to that, don't we?

They feed on the dead, excreting lurid full-color images in the wake of tragedy which they then sell for advertising dollars.

If you think people wait a long time for their government to save them, just imagine how long you'll wait for Anderson Cooper to pull you out of harm's way.