WPCNR News Commentary. By John F. Bailey. September 4, 2005: President Bush and his scrambling damage controllers are now asking the media to help them out of this “temporary disruption being handled by the federal government and private sector” as the Great Bush describes the Katrina Apocalypse.

I wonder if the Republican and Democratic Senators in Washington, only one of whom has come to New Orleans, would consider 1,000 counts of Involuntary Manslaughter grounds for bringing impeachment charges against a sitting-on-his-ass President, his vacationing staff, his Homeland Security Advisor, who apparently comes from the donuts-and-coffee era of Car 54 Where Are You Policing, his FEMA director, who has yet to get New Orleans excrement on his Gucci loafers, and his Secretary of State fashionista and Broadway Showtune Afficionado and tennis buff, the former sharecropper’s daughter; and oh, yes, the Vice President. Perhaps they all should be hung for the genocide they are presiding over.

Obviously, receiving sexual favors in the White House and seducing a 25-year-old woman, is, and that, of course is a far more serious offense that would automatically trigger impeachment proceedings, and negligent genocide committed by inaction when Americans are dying on our soil because of mismanagement pales in comparison to that atrocity committed on Monica Lewinsky.

But, the media have lost all reliability when they do not report explicitly that Mr. Bush was in New Orleans Friday and did not tour the area, did not commiserate with the victims (perhaps they smelled too bad, and the man who co-pilots jets onto an aircraft and says mission accomplished could not stomach it.) Those people waiting and dying have far more courage than anybody. It takes courage to face death. It takes no courage to provide gratuitous concerns.

I gotta tell you, you got to go into that airport area and spend some time if you are a decent human being in charge of taking care of them.

All America wants to take these poor brave souls into their homes I think. The President could not even walk amongst them. What would Jesus do?

It’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Well, I write the truth.

Maureen Dowd, writing in The New York Times today reported that “the can-do” President was at the New Orleans airport Friday, and did not, did not, did not visit the sick and dying victims his administration ignored for 4 days, and immediately flew his sorry do-nothing butt out of there. Ms. Dowd, thanks for revealing that. You are a great reporter for reporting what all the anchors and all the on the scene reporters did not.

If you watched CNN and Fox News Friday night from 10 P.M. to 3 A.M. early Saturday moring as I did, you had no clue he was in New Orleans Friday. If you listened to News Radio 880 and WABC Talk Radio, and Air America Radio in New York, during the day Friday, you also had no clue he was in New Orleans on the ground Friday. I want to know why the first time I am hearing in detail, that President Bush was on the tarmac in New Orleans is in Maureen Dowd’s column!

The Washington Post  buried this little item in their Saturday coverage, but at least they grasped the significance of it, and I bet the editor had to fight to keep it in. But this story was a Washington Post story the Journal News picked up.

The Washington Post wrote: “Bush flew here (New Orleans Airport) and saw firsthand an airport turned partly into a large field hospital. There, for most of the day, the tarmac was home to the injured and infirm, taken there for triage or treatment. Some walked or staggered; others waited in wheelchairs or on stretchers.”

But hey, Washington Post, did he touch a victim? Did he go up and see them? You got to report that.

Well, according to Ms. Dowd, he did not even go up and express sympathy. No Photo Op there! How callous of the President to avoid the dying.

Last night at about midnight, CNN dismissed, dismissed, dismissed coverage of the ongoing situation in The Big Hard, by doing around 15 minutes an the death of the Supreme Court Justice. Who cares about the man who put President Bush in office? The court that endorsed wholescale election fraud to their everlasting shame.

God, this Reinquist death was so welcomed by the media moguls, because it has given them an excuse to defocus America off the New Orleans involuntary genocide. Both news networks rolled glowing obituary tributes to the death of this man. One man.

This is news judgment that boggles the mind. Reinquist  was insignificant. But he was white, rich and powerful and distinguished. His death was more important than thousands’?????

But, that’s not all, ladies and gentlemen. The CNN reports were last night at midnight that all New Orleans refugees had been evacuated and were being routed to shelters. ALL. A little later they said that thousands were waiting at the New Orleans airport for flights out. This gives the impression the crisis has been met.

Well, hold on CNN and Fox. The victims were not in effect on their way. They, in reality, were moved a few miles to wait somewhere else for evacuation. This is spin. This is trying to make good so it can be said they’ve all been evacuated. They did report that officials were making phonecalls to hospitals around the country to take these poor folk and treat them. They don’t know where to send them.There are no contingency plans that they can tap. Why is that not being said?

No running death toll has been reported. And, as of Sunday morning, there is no estimate of the number of people left in the city to be rescued.

The flippant attitudes of the papers this morning and the television outlets last night was that the Guard has evacuated everybody. They were putting positive spin. And still the reports of looting were laced right up there at the top of the stories. The excuse.

Well let’s hear soundtrack of gunshots, CNN. Let’s run live footage instead of rerunning the same stuff. Let’s see the bodies. Better yet have your reporters COUNT bodies they see.

 Let’s turn the camera on the street at that embattled police station the other night, so we can see the people doing the seiging.  Let’s see have specifics of how many looting areas there were. If you can report it you must have it on tape somewhere. There was looting, yes. But to listen to the audio, you get the impression that this was Watts or Washington D.C. 1968 – it is not. I was there in Washington in 1968.

The most telling quote of all was from Bill Lockey, the FEMA official in charge in Louisiana. This is what he said, according to Washington Post report:

“It seems our planning was inadequate. We worked on it, we exercised for it, but the reality of it – we’ve been working as hard as we can do. I’ve yet to be in a disaster where it went right.”

Inadequate? There was no planning. The basic question FEMA had to ask themselves about New Orleans, was, how do we get 480,000 people out if the levees break? Where do we treat 480,000 people? Obviously they did not have a preset plan. You can see it on TV.

The media is struggling to make the President look good. The in-the-muck reporters are showing great courage in getting the story. Adminstration and officials statements are not being challenged and hard questions not asked.

It takes no courage to write this column. But it is the right thing to do. Somebody has to see a cover-up in the process.

Now what will be Sunday’s photo ops? Perhaps they can wash up a few grateful refugees for the President to hug by Monday.

Let’s face it, the Bush Administration is spending more energy trying to show the President cares than any real caring.

Is that an impeachable offense, not caring?