The Potemkin Photo Op

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" Zepp " <zepp

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 16:17:40 -0700

The Potemkin Photo Op

 

 

 

The Potemkin Photo Op

Saturday, September 03 2005 @ 09:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time

 

Contributed by: Stranger

<http://www.blah3.com/users.php?mode=profile & uid=2>

 

Initally spotted at Bartcop.com

 

I was tuning in and out of Bush's massive photo op on the Gulf Coast

yesterday, and everything at the time seemed just a little too pat for

me. From the 'briefing' that went on in a hangar full of helicopters to

his walking down a street in Biloxi and having three regular citizens

walk up to him for comforting to the last press availiability of the

day

when he announced that the Convention Center was secure and the levees

were being repaired, it was clear that the game plan from the White

House was for Bush to go to the region, look decisive, comfort a few

citizens, and announce at the end of the day that all was well.

 

It was a full-on effort to change the subject of discussion from the

utter failure of the Bush administration to handle the crisis with even

a hint of competency, and in true Bush fashion, he wrapped it up at

5:00

PM and announced that he was 'Flyin' out of (t)here.'

 

But from beginning to end, the entire exercise was a series of lies - a

Potemkin photo op designed to fool those Americans who were not

bothering to look closely at what was going on. Let's look at key

aspects of Bush's trip that were covered by television.

 

*The Briefing:* There were a lot of questions asked yesterday morning

about the phony briefing that Bush got in that hangar, featuring a

backdrop of Coast Guard helicopters. People were wondering why those

choppers were not out picking up flood victims or delivering supplies.

The reason why is simple - Bush had the majority of helcopter traffic

stopped while Marine One was in the Gulf Coast region. The New Orleans

Times-Picayune reported this (Via AmericaBlog

<http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/breaking-bush-visit-to-new-orleans.html\

>):

 

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard

Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge

Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush's

visit to New Orleans, officials said.

 

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville,

and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun

as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after

Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon's chief of

staff, Casey O'Shea.

 

" We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and

now the food is sitting in trucks because they won't let helicopters

fly, " O'Shea said Friday afternoon.

 

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the

president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

 

This leaves me wondering how many people died while Bush was playing

Decisive Leader.

 

*The First 'Comforting Session':* Then it was off to Biloxi, MS to

survey the damage. As Bush, Haley Barbour and others walked down a

street, 2 women appeared seemingly out of nowhere for Bush to 'comfort'

them. But it turns out that the two women didn't even/ live/ in Biloxi,

and had just come down for the day to try to 'salvage' clothes from the

area for one of the women's son (were they looters?). But they were

apparently reasonably telegenic and happened to be in the area, so they

were recruited to represent an area where they didn't even live. A

number of threads at Democratic Underground <http://tinyurl.com/cp9eu>

discuss the weirdness of these women showing up in a disaster area. And

a trandcript of the conversation between Bush and the women reads like

a

bad comedy skit:

 

Bush to women: " There's a Salvation Army center that I want to, that

I'll tell you where it is, and they'll get you some help. I'm sorry....

They'll help you.....

Woman 1: " I came here looking for clothes... "

Bush: " They'll get you some clothes, at the Salvation Army center... "

Woman 1: " We don't have anything... "

Bush: " I understand.... Do you know where the center is, that I'm

talking to you about? "

Guy with shades: " There's no center there, sir, it's a truck. "

Bush: " There's trucks? "

Guy: " There's a school, a school about two miles away..... "

Bush: " But isn't there a Salvation center down there? "

Guy: " No that's wiped out.... "

Bush: " A temporary center? "

Guy: " No sir they've got a truck there, for food. "

Bush: " That's what I'm saying, for food and water. "

Bush turns to the sister who's been saying how she needs clothes.

Bush to sister: " You need food and water. "

 

*The 'Recovery Efforts':* Wherever Bush went yesterday, it seemed as

though people were already hard at work rebuilding the affected areas.

Unfortunately for Bush, there were a few foreign journalists at his

photo ops, and they pulled back the curtain on what we saw on TV to

reveal that the 'work' was staged for the media. Here's a translation

from the German news show web site <http://tinyurl.com/caz2g>.

 

Christine Adelhardt live from Biloxi:

 

" Two minutes ago the President drove by with his convoy. What happened

here in Biloxi during the day is really unbelievable. All of a sudden

the rescue troops finally showed up, the clean-up vehicles; we didn't

see those over the last days here. In an area where it really isn't

urgent, there is nobody around, all the remaining people went to the

city center.

 

The President is traveling with a press convoy, so they get wonderful

pictures saying the president was here and the help will follow. The

amount of this catastrophe shocked me, but the amount of set-up that

happened here today is at least equally shocking for me.

 

And there's more, this time on the 'recovery efforts' in New Orleans,

from War And Piece <http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002485.html>:

 

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on

the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports

of the same event by German TV.

 

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged

event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point

Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after

the

president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which

were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

 

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves,

said

ZDF.

 

*Levee Repairs in New Orleans:* As Bush flew around the skies above New

Orleans, CNN began showing footage of a bulldozer and dump trucks

working on the 17th Street levee, which was the maqin source of the

flood waters in New Orleans. When Bush got ready to leave, he crowed

that 'progress is flowing.' But according to Sen. Mary Landrieu, the

crew that was working so hard yesterday left and apparently never came

back:

 

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th

Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President,

I

saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle

on a major cause of this catastrophe.* Flying over this critical spot

again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that

yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential

photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were

this

morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.* The good and

decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and

white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their

national government.

 

*Control of the Convention Center:* Bush made a big deal of telling the

nation <http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/02/ldt.01.html>

that

the icon for unrest and chaos in New Orleans this week - the New

Orleans

Convention Center - was secured by the time of his statement yesterday.

 

I'm pleased to report, thanks to the good work of the adjutant general

from Louisiana and the troops that have been called in that the

convention center is secure.

 

But as was pointed out this morning, a report by CNN Pentagon

correspondent Barbara Starr directly contradicted Bush's statement

<http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html>.

 

CNN's Barbara Starr reports that there is " no indication " the

convention

center in New Orleans is secure. She reports there is still much

unrest.

 

And the now-famous Fox News video

<http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763> of Geraldo Rivera

inside the Convention Center showed how Bush's idea of 'securing' the

center was/ locking the people in/.

 

All of this information has turned up in one spot or another on the web

since yesterday, but I wanted to put it all together in one spot for a

reason. Bit by bit, parts of Bush's trip were shown to be less truthful

than we deserved. But when you look at the entire trip - and all of the

deceit that went into each part of it - it's an inescapable fact that

from beginning to end the trip was a menu of lies and self-serving

actions that didn't do the region any good. In some instances, like the

helicopter groundings halting rescue ops, the trip could conceivably

actually/ killed more people/.

 

And that's the bottom line with this administration. It always has

been.

Bush, Rove, and the rest of them will go to any measures to get their

version of the truth out. and if a few of the little people happen to

die in the process, it's no skin off their noses. All of America should

know what the true bottom line is.

 

*You are being lied to, and lives have been lost because of it.*

 

--

 

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