Plumbing the muck that is the BBC

As I type, there is a show being broadcast on the BBC called "Hurricane Katrina: The Real Story". Yes that's right. One single week after the hurricane, and with the rescue and relief operation is still going on, the BBC claims to have "the real story". Right.

I'd like to tell you about it all, but about 15 minutes into it, I simply couldn't watch anymore. The BBC's descent into sensationalism, tabloid journalism, and cheap propaganda simply disgusted me too much to continue watching it.

Going through "the real story" day by day, the show got to Tuesday, the day after Katrina hit and the point at which the degree of flooding and destruction started to become known. At this point, up came a picture of a smiling Bush with a guitar in hand, and a graphic which said (something like) "While people struggle for survival in New Orleans, President Bush is on holiday."

The combination of the photo and the words represents a complete lie, and I use that word advisedly. The picture of Bush with the guitar was taken backstage after a speech Bush had just delivered at Naval Air Station North Island in California on Tuesday morning. (The guitar had just been presented to him by country singer Mark Wills). So, contrary to what the BBC said, Bush was not "on holiday" but was in fact at an official function performing official duties. Again, what the BBC said was an out and out lie.

Now, one might reasonably argue that, presuming the extent of the problems in New Orleans was known at the time (the speech was delivered at 9am PST), Bush should have cancelled the speech, in order to attend to matters in New Orleans. One might also argue that, having given the speech, Bush should have dashed off immediately without stopping for the customary backstage gladhanding. But this was not what the BBC was suggesting. It did not say that while the people of New Orleans struggle for survival, Bush was giving a pre-scheduled speech at a Naval Station. It claimed he was "on holiday".

And the BBC did not go so far as to simply show a photograph in the absence of context, insinuating something that wasn't true, which would be bad enough. It deliberately and specifically added a false context to the photo - "Bush on holiday" - and then juxtaposed that against the disaster unfolding in New Orleans, in order to make Bush appear as inept and out of touch as possible.

I would like to report on what the rest of the program was like, but, as I said, I was simply too disgusted to carry on. I had to switch it off. If this is not yellow journalism, I don't know what is. The BBC sinks to lower and lower depths each day. How the British people can continue to endorse this kind of tabloid trash with their tax dollars is quite beyond me.

Past predictions

I received a link to this very interesting article today in an e-mail. It is a paper that was written last year by Shirley Laska from the Center for Hazards Assessment at the University of New Orleans, and is an assessment of the evacuation of New Orleans during hurricane Ivan in September last year, along with the implications for the city had Ivan hit New Orleans rather than veering away as it did.

Some notable points, worth keeping in mind as the recriminations over Katrina fly back and forth (all emphasis added):

Evacuation challenges

Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished…

To the Rescue

If a hurricane of a magnitude similar to Ivan does strike New Orleans, the challenges surrounding rescue efforts for those who have not evacuated will be different from other coastal areas….Regional and national rescue resources would have to respond as rapidly as possible and would require augmentation by local private vessels (assuming some survived). And, even with this help, federal and state governments have estimated that it would take 10 days to rescue all those stranded within the city…

Accepting the reality

Should this disaster become a reality, it would undoubtedly be one of the greatest disasters, if not the greatest, to hit the United States, with estimated costs exceeding 100 billion dollars. According to the American Red Cross, such an event could be even more devastating than a major earthquake in California. Survivors would have to endure conditions never before experienced in a North American disaster.

And so they have.

More credit given

The Guardian’s Gary Younge, whose coverage of Cindy Sheehan has been criticized more than once by TAE, deserves credit for today’s piece which casts some doubt on some of the more wild stories that had been swirling around in the wake of Katrina last week.

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.

In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.

But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.

New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.

I suppose the rampant propagation of rumors is inevitable in chaotic circumstances like last week, but it would be nice if journalists did not help them gain currency by credulously printing them as facts. Younge does credit the rumors, true or not, with having expedited the relief process, although he provides virtually no evidence to suggest that is so nor any reason to assume that it is. Still, he deserves credit for at least attempting to provide some truth and perspective to the wild stories rather than simply repeating them.

BTW, as the situation in New Orleans continues to calm down and more information is available, expect to see even more of the emotional reporting being done last week to become discredited in one way or another.

Well done, Paul...seriously

The BBC's Paul Reynolds' take on the failures surrounding the New Orleans pre- and post- Katrina planning is the best and most reasonable yet to find its way on to the BBC. I am tempted to say it is the only reasonable analysis the BBC has done, but perhaps there is something out there I have not yet seen.

While certainly not letting the federal government off the hook, Reynolds does a good job in pointing out the responsibilities of other officials, including the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor, and the questions that they face as well. For example, pointing out an AP photo of tens of flooded out school buses still lined up in their parking lot, Reynolds wonders "how much city transport was actually used" in the evacuation. Of particular note to me was this line, which seemed to me to be a deliberate (and deserved), if mild, swipe at Reynolds' BBC colleague Matt Wells:

There are questions for the mayor, dubbed heroic by some, to answer.

Wells, you will recall, is the BBC reporter who breathlessly called the mayor "genuinely heroic" as he scathingly ripped into Bush.

With regard to the charges about Bush having slashed federal funds for flood control in New Orleans, Reynolds presents the charges, but also points out that there were no plans for any strengthening of the levees, and that, just as I noted the other day, any such plan would have taken many years to be implemented, and would not have been in place in any event.

Reynolds concludes that, with regard to the problems made evident by Katrina, "It is a long and complex chain of responsibility." That is the single most sensible and reasonable sentence regarding the disaster that has been written at the BBC yet. Let's hope Reynolds gets through to the rest of his overwrought colleagues at the Beeb.

WaPo

The Washington Post (no favorite of mine, for sure) provides the type of calm and restrained reflection on the New Orleans disaster that the British press, most notably the BBC and The Guardian, seem to be incapable of providing.

THE LACK OF National Guard troops because of the war in Iraq; the Bush administration's failure to protect coastal wetlands; the reorganization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: All have been blamed, somewhat rbitrarily, for the stunning scenes of chaos at the New Orleans Superdome and convention center, for the unprecedented floodwaters in the city, and for the huge numbers of people without food or water. But if blame is to be laid and lessons are to be drawn, one point stands out as irrefutable: Emergency planners must focus much more on the fate of that part of the population that -- for reasons of poverty, infirmity, distrust of officialdom, lack of transportation or lack of information -- cannot be counted on to leave their homes after an evacuation order.

A look to India

Following on Matt Wells' suggestion that third world dictators were better at disaster recovery operations than the US and Paul Reynolds' more specific suggestion that Fidel Castro was a good example of such, yet another BBC reporter, Daniel Lak, has decided to weigh in with a suggestion that US relief efforts compare unfavorably with yet another place, namely India. Lak says that:

…I hesitate to say this at such an early stage of the relief effort here, but the authorities in India at least, and some other countries in the region, have become quite good at dealing with severe flooding, or earthquakes, catastrophic events on a tsunami scale, if you will.

Certainly quicker with both material and political comfort to survivors.

It did not take long for huge field hospitals and vast camps of toilets and clean water tanks to be set up in southern India for example, after the tsunami hit there last year, whereas here in Mississippi, the authorities are still begging people to boil their water and watch where they go to the toilet, lest they give or receive some
water-borne disease.

Lak doesn’t tell us exactly how long “not long” means, but in any event he should probably have hesitated a bit more, and not just because of the foolishness in taking a single disaster relief operation (out of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, that have been undertaken by the US, both domestically and internationally) as defining the capabilities of the US. He should have at least hesitated long enough to research the BBC’s very own website to see how the Indian relief operation was being reported at the time.

The tsunami hit on December 26. Three days later, BBC reporter Geeta Pandey was in the Andaman Islands, the worst hit portion of India, and was reporting that “rescue teams are yet to reach some of the islands” and that at the relief camps that had been set up (by NGOs, notably) “water supply has been a problem.”

The next day, four days after the tsunami had hit, Pandey reported that victims who had made their way to relief stations “…say the government claim that food and water is being airdropped to those still stranded is false.”

Six days after the disaster hit, on January 1, 2005, Jonathon Charles was reporting that:

The Indian military now appears to be taking over the prime responsibility for the relief effort, removing overall control from the civilian authorities in what seems to be a sign that the operation to bring help to the stricken Andaman and Nicobar islands is struggling.

The regional military commander-in-chief, General BS Thakur, acknowledged that his troops were facing huge logistical problems in getting aid to the people who desperately needed it.

The BBC later did a whole treatment on the political recriminations going on in India surrounding the handling of the relief operations during the tsunami crisis. One Indian commentary cited by the BBC said:

While the chief minister was surrounded by fish workers accusing the government of failing to organise relief activities the tsunami-hit simply asked Achuthanandan to stop making speeches and go away.

The BBC noted that:

A commentator in the daily Eenadu agrees that the plight of the survivors did not seem to be uppermost in the minds of Indian politicians.

It also noted that:

Another writer in the same paper believes that the authorities' errors began even before the tsunami hit.

"It is the fault of the official machinery for its failure to alert people about the impending disaster of the tsunami, in spite of having a full 150 minutes from when the earthquake occurred."

"The authorities cannot escape responsibility by saying that it was a holiday," the article, entitled "Human error causes great havoc", adds.

And still more:

A commentary in Malayala Manorama puts the blame on the relief agencies for the slow arrival of aid.

"While the local administration and state government undoubtedly mounted a massive effort after an initial slow start," it says, "there was little coordination among the agencies involved in relief operations."

Hmmm. The “slow arrival of aid”? Accusations of being on “holiday”? Failure to take pre-disaster measures? An uncaring political class? Does all this sound, perhaps, just a little bit familiar?

Lak concludes by suggesting that the US look to India for the “best way to deal with disaster” (although he disdainfully adds that he doubts anyone will take his advice.) There are indeed lessons to be learned by looking at India, although it is not clear to me that it has much to do with dealing with disaster. The lesson is twofold: First, that political opportunism, finger-pointing, and blame seeking for the unavoidable difficulties in dealing with disaster are not unique to the US; and second, that the BBC’s “From Our Own Correspondent” series is a gigantic waste of journalistic airtime…and hence taxpayer monies.

Keeping one's head

A letter sent to National Review Online this weekend:

Sir,

I am seeing and reading all the commentary about the "slow" Federal response to Katrina and, perhaps its my background as a military logistician (retired now for a number of years), but I'd like to offer a few observations. As we say in the military, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. We plan, pre-position and prepare and then have to adapt to the chaos of battle Clausewitz dubbed the "fog of war." While the shameless mayor of NewOrleans sounds off like an aggrieved pimp on the radio, a military operation, involving both Guard and active duty, that dwarfs our invasion of Panama has been gathering and underway since Tuesday. I saw the first alert orders go out Tuesday. (The President, BTW, issued disaster emergency declarations even before Katrina made landfall.) The first order of business for any operation, relief or military, is assess needs, routes of ingress and egress, etc. We're looking at a disaster area covering 90,000 square miles--this is not just New Orleans. Moving the right supplies and people to the right area in the right order is complex, even with a fully functioning communications net and an intact road network. Here we are, 96 hours after landfall, and thousands of troops, tons and tons of supplies, and a fleet of warships are there or due to arrive shortly. This is no small feat.

It should be noted that Gov Blanco was slow to ramp up the LA Guard--you don't simply call a Guardsman and tell him to report in two hours. By law, they can take as much as 72 hours to report so that they can get their affairs in order. If they show up sooner, great, but the point is, while all media--and some at the Corner--obsess over the Fed's performance, the flaccid response of local and state authorities in Louisiana made a daunting task even tougher. The Guard and military, for example, rely on local authorities to provide some idea of where victims are, and, as we have heard, Nagin's office didn't bother telling FEMA that Nagin had directed people to the NO Convention Center. Likewise, CSAR and medical units are not combat outfits. Having to bring in more troops to quell the animalistic behavior of some (and that behavior, BTW, broke out before the rains even stopped, though Blanco and Nagin didn't seem to care) means the flow of supplies and evacuees is slowed.

In any event, I hear a lot of people talking about the unprecedented scope and scale of the disaster, and, in the next breath, wonder what's taking so long. There is always room for improvement and this is not to say the Feds shouldn't take their share of knocks, but I've spoken with a number of military officers from other nations, including Third World states, who are studying here, and they are bemused by the spectacle of hand wringing and media panic.

As the subject line says, just my two cents' worth.

Sincerely,

(Emphasis added by me) This strikes me as a voice of sanity amidst a sea of media hysteria.

I personally have no idea what is involved in tending to the needs of tens of thousands of people trapped in a city that is under 20 feet of water, (nor do, I am sure, the journalists who are pontificating on the level of incompetence being shown by those who are charged with doing it) so maybe I am way off. But the above sounds sensible to me.

Same old same old

I would be inclined to rip apart this horrendous piece of so-called journalism from one Matt Wells of (no surprise here) the BBC, but Ed at Biased BBC has already thoroughly trashed it.

I will only add that Wells' unthinking agenda, and that is most certainly what it is, is made abundantly clear in a particularly illogical series of observations in which he speaks of the "genuinely heroic mayor" of New Orleans a mere 3 sentences before decrying the fact that "No official plan was ever put in place for [the tens of thousands of the poorest residents]."

Well which is it Matt? Is the mayor genuinely heroic? Or did he fail to plan for his city's residents, particularly the poorest ones? Only in the unthinking and ideologically constrained minds of those at the BBC, where George Bush is singularly to blame for all ills great and small, could it possibly be both.

It is also notable that throughout this entire diatribe, the governor of Louisiana, who, in the federal system that is the United States, is the primary executive in charge of managing these types of disaster situations, does not get mentioned once. Not a single, solitary time. Wells, it seems, has never even heard of her.

This is the type of calm, reasoned, and thoughtful reflections that the taxpayers of Britain are forced to pay for. The federal government of the US has nothing on the BBC when it comes to malign incompetence.

Some perspective

John Podheretz, writing on NRO's blog The Corner, provides some perspective on the relief operation in New Orleans:

So it took the federal government somewhere between 72 and 96 hours to go on full mobilization after the disasters of Katrina. At any time in history before the present moment, that would have been considered lightning-fast. Even as little as five years ago, we wouldn't have gotten the horrifying reports out of New Orleans that we got from Shep Smith and others using light cameras and videophones -- and by the time the extent of the nightmare would have become widely known, the relief operation would have been fully underway.

After all, huge naval vessels can only sail so fast; the deployment of National Guardsmen takes a bit of time; even moving helicopters and the like into place surely isn't a matter of a few moments. The thing is that America now sees these things in real time and imagines that if Fox and CNN can be there with a few people, surely the feds can be there with tens of thousands.

With the local and state governments of Louisiana collapsing both tactically and emotionally, there was nowhere for that sense of frustration to flow other than toward the federal government. And there it will remain until the president succeeds in convincing the nation that he has taken personal responsibility for the management of this unprecedented disaster. At which point the responsibility might well begin to flow back again to the local and state authorities whose negligence in the days preceding the catastrophe border on the homicidally negligent. But not until then.

Beeb on the Blumenthal bandwagon

As I predicted, Sydney Blumenthal is getting plenty of airtime, despite the demonstrable falseness of his charges. Yesterday the BBC's 5-Live radio had him on to talk during the late afternoon drive time, giving him the opportunity to spout his rubbish unchallenged for the entire commuting nation.

He was, naturally, introduced simply as an "aide to former President Clinton", but anyone who was around during the Clinton years will know how inadequate that description is. Blumenthal was the most ardent defender of and spin doctor for Clinton, himself taking what Clinton decried as "the politics of personal destruction" to new heights. His reputation for honesty and fairness is, shall we say, not exactly sterling. Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff has described Blumenthal as someone who "rearranges facts, spins conspiracy theories, impugns motives, and besmirches the character of his political and journalistic foes" and regarding Blumenthal's book The Clinton Wars, says that "Although there are slivers of truth in most of what he writes, the facts are dishonestly rearranged to settle scores or whitewash his and the Clintons' actions." In other words, Blumenthal's word is not to be taken on trust.

The BBC's presenter Peter Allen is either ignorant of Blumenthal's reputation or he doesn't care, for he treated Blumenthal and his charges with the utmost credulity. There was no skepticism, no effort to challenge Blumenthal, and quite clearly no knowledge of (or at least no desire to inform his audience of) the real facts surrounding the charges. Such a credulous approach might be defensible with an interviewee thought or known to be an unbiased expert in the subject of the discussion. But Blumenthal is neither an expert in flood control nor is he unbiased. Indeed, he is about as far from unbiased as one can get. Yet the BBC allowed Blumenthal to spin his claims without a single peep of skepticism, and without having anyone else on to counter them.

The BBC is appalling.

Blumenthal bombast

Sydney Blumenthal’s effort to place blame for what is probably the worst natural disaster in American history directly at Bush’s feet is starting to make the rounds, and will no doubt be well received by its European target audience. It has already appeared in Germany’s Spiegel, and today the very same piece makes its appearance in The Guardian. And, of course, its theme will continue to be amplified by ostensibly objective news stories of the “critics of Bush say” variety. (See the previously mentioned Paul Reynolds piece.)

Not that it would ever stop the likes of The Guardian from trumpeting his claptrap, but we should note that, over and above the unsettling swiftness with which Bush’s political enemies seek to capitalize on this human tragedy, his claims have already been thoroughly debunked. A poster at redstate.org has put up an excellent and long critique of the “blame Bush” meme, culminating with this:

Was it rational and defensible to shift funding from any source toward defense- and war-related activities in the aftermath of 9/11? Of course. Did that shift leave the levees unready to handle Katrina's deadly burden? No. The levees were inherently unready: even at maximum proposed funding, their design was only for a Cat3 storm, not the Cat4/5 that Katrina was. It is true that in 2004, proposals were floated to upgrade to a Cat4/5-capable levee system; it is also true that even in an ideal situation, the studies — not the construction! — necessary to assess what that would entail would not be finished before 2008.

As for Blumenthal’s claim that Bush’s development policies are responsible for degrading the wetlands around New Orleans which, he says, would have reduced the storm surge if better maintained, consider this MSNBC report:

[Envornmental experts] say the levees that ring the city have led to the rapid decay of nearby wetlands during the past century, removing a crucial buffer zone that once protected the area from hurricanes...

Several factors — most human-made — have contributed to the steady decline of the delta at the bottom of the Mississippi. But most of the erosion is blamed on the levees, which faithfully steer all the water from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. That prevents occasional flooding, keeping area residents above water most of the time. But one unforeseen consequence of the levees has been to cut off wetlands from their life force.

The regular floods served nature's purpose by feeding the delta, bringing fresh water and sediment that served to sustain life and replenish the wetlands. Without the regular flooding, the wetlands naturally “compact.”

“Simply put, when the land does not have any nutrients and fresh water it dies,” Marmillion said.

So, it was not Bush, but the very fact that the Mississippi was prevented from flooding in the first place, which caused the degradation. [Update: the preceding sentence was originally, and erroneously, placed in italics, making it appear to be a part of the MSNBC report. It was not. It was my own comment. My apologies for the error.]

I don’t expect these facts to keep the media from credulously citing Blumenthal’s latest hit piece, but they are worth pointing out, nonetheless.

(Hat tip to NRO)

OK, but...

BBC’s World Affairs Correspondent (and occasional TAE reader) Paul Reynolds weighs in on Katrina. It is, I think, largely a reasonable piece, although I can't let a couple of things pass.

First is his mischaracterization of Peggy Noonan, in order to portray her as particularly concerned about Bush’s effort so far.

Even his supporters like columnist Peggy Noonan are concerned that the federal government was a bit slow off the mark. She wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "More was needed in terms of sending a US military presence into New Orleans."

She asked about Mr Bush: "Does he understand that what has happened in our Gulf is as important as what is happening in the other Gulf?"

Placed as it is, the question appears to betray Noonan’s doubt about that understanding. In fact, Noonan was listing the types of questions one should ask in order to assess the president’s performance. She was not raising doubts of her own. This is the whole passage from Noonan’s column, in which she was going through a list of players, and assessing their actions so far:

President Bush. The political subtext: Does he understand that what has happened in our gulf is as important as what is happening in the other gulf? Does he know in his gut that the existence of looting, chaos and disease in a great American city, or cities, is a terrible blow that may have deep implications? It was bad luck that on the day it became clear a bad storm was a catastrophe he was giving a major Iraq speech, and bad planning that he arrived back at the White House cradling a yippy puppy. But his Rose Garden statement was solid. Yes, it was a laundry list, but the kind that that gives an impression of comprehensive government action. Having the cabinet there was good. His concern was obvious. But more was needed in terms of sending a U.S. military presence into New Orleans.

In other words, her assessment was mostly positive, answering her own question by saying that "His concern was obvious." But Reynolds extracts the one substantive criticism she made and adds to it a question taken out of context in order to make the point that "Even [Bush’s] supporters" are concerned about what he's doing. The impression he leaves of Noonan's piece is, quite simply, false. (Which is odd, because if he was looking for conservative critics of Bush, and particularly Bush's immediate reaction, he could have easily found them at National Review.)

Reynolds also makes a strange statement when wondering why so many people had not evactuated New Orleans, despite being urged to do so.

There has been some dispute about why so many were left behind or stayed behind. In Cuba they would have been taken out. Whether enough transport was available or whether people simply ignored the warnings will have to be examined for lessons to be learned in future.

The relevance of what Cuba would have done, even if Reynolds can accurately divine what El Commandante Castro would have done, is lost on me. I’d like to think that Reynolds is not actually comparing the freedom of New Orleans unfavourably with the tyranny of Havana, but frankly I can’t think of any other reason for this statement, and this is, afterall, the BBC. So anything is possible.

Perhaps Mr. Reynolds will bless us with an explanation.

Webb: Katrina problems no big deal

Justin Webb, reporting on the BBC’s 5-Live radio program this morning about Americans’ reactions to the seeming inability of the government to get food and water to so many of those stranded in New Orleans, says that the people are astonished at “what should be, frankly, not really that huge a problem.” Perhaps the relief efforts should enlist Webb’s extensive experience at what he apparently thinks is the relatively simple task of rescuing and feeding thousands of people stranded in a city that is 80% under water.

Reprehensible Dems

This is the how the DNC responds to disaster and human tragedy:

9/1/2005 12:34:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Josh Earnest of the Democratic National Committee, 202-863-8148

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the Democratic National Committee:

This morning, President Bush told Diane Sawyer on ABC's Good Morning America that to ease skyrocketing gas prices Americans "oughtta conserve more and I would hope Americans conserve if given the choice."(ABC, Good Morning America, 9/1/05)

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement reminding President Bush that in case he hadn't noticed, ordinary Americans have been doing their part. They have been making sacrifices, they have been suffering. Meanwhile President Bush has failed to rein in skyrocketing gas prices. Now, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as Americans pull together to do their part, and gas prices again explode, Chairman Dean suggested that perhaps it's time for President Bush to finally use whatever influence he may have to call on his friends and campaign contributors in the oil and gas industry to bear their fair share of the burden:

"Under the Bush Presidency over the past five years we've seen skyrocketing gas prices and oil companies reaping record profits, while ordinary Americans struggle to pay their bills -- yet the President has seemingly looked the other way. Americans are always willing to shoulder their fair share of the burden, and they have been. Now it's time for the President to step up and put the needs of the American people ahead of profits for his pals in Big Oil. So while he's asking ordinary Americans to do more, he ought to show some real leadership, and call on his friends in Big Oil to join in the sacrifice and stop gouging American families at the gas pump."

---

Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee, http://www.democrats.org. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Tragedy no impediment to The Guardian's agenda

At the conclusion of what was otherwise a generally sympathetic and reasonable editorial look at the effects of Katrina, The Guardian’s editors can’t help themselves but to conclude with this unsupported, and unsupportable, knock on the US government:

And, just when the victims most need the support of the federal government, they find themselves dependent on one that is least inclined to accept its responsibilities.

Oh really? From the AP:

As the Category 4 the storm surged ashore just east of New Orleans on Monday, FEMA had medical teams, rescue squads and groups prepared to supply food and water poised in a semicircle around the city, said agency Director Michael Brown.

FEMA, by the way, stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The EPA dispatched emergency crews to Louisiana and Texas, because of concern about oil and chemical spills. The agency has set up facilities for checking on the damage, but won't be able to quickly assess the region's needs until it can safely send more people into the field.

For those who might be unaware, the Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government.

More than 40 Coast Guard aircraft from units along the entire Eastern Seaboard, along with more than 30 small boats, patrol boats and cutters, were positioned around the area to be ready to conduct post-hurricane search and rescue operations and to do waterway damage checks and begin any needed repairs.

The Coast Guard, in case you were wondering, is a part of federal government.

The Agriculture Department said it will provide meals and other commodities, such as infant formula, distilled water for babies and emergency food stamps, through its Food and Nutrition Service.

Its Natural Resources Conservation Service has an emergency watershed protection program. Its Rural Development office offers housing assistance to keep people from being delinquent on housing payments. The Farm Service Agency has state emergency boards with members who will help assess damage to agriculture and help decide the type and amount of recovery aid available in areas where disasters have been declared.

That would be the same Agricultural Department which is a department of the federal government.

The Defense Department dispatched emergency coordinators to Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi to provide a wide range of assistance including communications equipment, search and rescue operations, medical teams and other emergency supplies.

Yes the Defense Department, as you might have guessed, is a department of the federal government.

Bloomberg also tells us that:

President George W. Bush, after getting a bird's-eye view of Hurricane Katrina's destruction, plans to ask Congress for emergency relief and recovery funds, his spokesman said today...

Congressional leaders already are planning to work on special legislation to aid victims of the storm, states, local governments, and businesses when lawmakers reconvene next week, said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican. The amount will depend on a damage assessment made once rescue operations are finished.

For the apparently unedified editors of The Guardian, George Bush and those congressional leaders referred to are, of course, member of the federal government.

If the editors of The Guardian feel free to deceive its audience about the US government in their very own editorials, what should that tell us about their inclination to ensure that their reporters are portraying the news honestly and accurately?

(And, BTW, what's up with this bizarre reference to post-Civil War times in the same editorial: "Increasingly too, these regions depend on tourism, but tourists could stay away for many months until the reconstruction - a term with unhappy resonance in those parts - kicks in.")

There were liberal groups involved?!?

A TAE reader notes a Washington Times article which points out that, with regard to Cindy Sheehan, big money liberal backers such as Moveon.org appear to be, um, moving on.

Powerful liberal advocacy groups such as MoveOn.org are taking a less active role in Cindy Sheehan's anti-war activities in the wake of criticism that they may have muddied her message.

The groups, which played a major role in Mrs. Sheehan's monthlong vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, are scaling back their involvement as Mrs. Sheehan prepares to leave Texas today on a bus tour to Washington.

The BBC’s audience would probably not know quite what to make of this news, given that they were never informed of the role that the groups were playing in the first place. A search of the BBC’s website for stories which include the words “Cindy Sheehan” and “moveon.org” returns a single story, in which we are told as an aside simply that “Around 1,600 vigils had been planned by liberal advocacy groups MoveOn.org Political Action, TrueMajority and Democracy for America.”