Thursday, September 07, 2006
Where Are the "Bush Lied" Headlines?
The GAO contradicts the president and nobody notices. Nobody but da po'blog that is. In case you missed it, the GAO has announced that it is unable to track the $88B that congress allocated to help the victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. (The Picayune's article)
Clearly, the GAO thinks that less money has been allocated than the president does. Da po'blog does a far better job of tracking the money than I could ever hope to do, but what's as important as how the president arrived at his inflated figures is the reaction to it, or non-reaction to it. From the beginning, there's been almost no response from reporters, pundits or even the Democratic Party. There's been the occasional story about how the money's been spent, but almost no questioning of the obvious padding that's been going on since at least January. At least I thought it was obvious, it was a total WTF? moment when I thought I heard the president say $86B. My jaw dropped, I stopped what I was doing and I actually started paying close attention to a man who usually turns my stomach. If Bush didn't explain the new aid figure, I was sure that the commentators on CNN would question it afterwards. They didn't, and they barely have since.
I thought I was getting somewhere when I emailed the WAPO and got responses from Deborah Howell and Spencer Hsu, but neither answered my reply. At least they responded, I emailed a couple of the more widely read liberal bloggers and got no response at all. My feelings arent hurt that they didn't respond to me, so don't expect a Chris Rose style piece about my attempts to contact the famous (well famous in the blogosphere). But isn't refuting the other side's spin one of the main thing a blogger tries to do? You would think there'd be some interest in such obvious distortion but there hasn't been so far. I wonder if it's obvious enough now.
Clearly, the GAO thinks that less money has been allocated than the president does. Da po'blog does a far better job of tracking the money than I could ever hope to do, but what's as important as how the president arrived at his inflated figures is the reaction to it, or non-reaction to it. From the beginning, there's been almost no response from reporters, pundits or even the Democratic Party. There's been the occasional story about how the money's been spent, but almost no questioning of the obvious padding that's been going on since at least January. At least I thought it was obvious, it was a total WTF? moment when I thought I heard the president say $86B. My jaw dropped, I stopped what I was doing and I actually started paying close attention to a man who usually turns my stomach. If Bush didn't explain the new aid figure, I was sure that the commentators on CNN would question it afterwards. They didn't, and they barely have since.
I thought I was getting somewhere when I emailed the WAPO and got responses from Deborah Howell and Spencer Hsu, but neither answered my reply. At least they responded, I emailed a couple of the more widely read liberal bloggers and got no response at all. My feelings arent hurt that they didn't respond to me, so don't expect a Chris Rose style piece about my attempts to contact the famous (well famous in the blogosphere). But isn't refuting the other side's spin one of the main thing a blogger tries to do? You would think there'd be some interest in such obvious distortion but there hasn't been so far. I wonder if it's obvious enough now.
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I know it's not news, but it is one more example of the Democrats letting the Republicans set the terms of debate.
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