Saturday, September 03, 2005

Even Fox News Can't Suppress New Orleans Reality

From Crooks and Liars, have a look at a segment on Fox News where Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera provide some refreshingly honest insights on the situation in New Orleans and the inexplicably horrible job the federal government has done in helping Hurricane Katrina victims.



Here's an excerpt of Smith when asked about aid not making it to people stranded on a highway:

"It's one of the first stories I've ever covered where questions as simple as why do the people on an easily-accessible bridge not get food and water and don't even get instructions on where to go and get food and water and medical attention. It's the first time I've ever not known the answer to that and I'm not sure there is an answer."
Then there's Geraldo Rivera reporting from the Convention Center:
"There's no earthly answer that anyone can understand for why these people after six days are still in this filthy, filthy miserable convention center. Why are they still here? You cannot deny that it is six days since this natural disaster befell New Orleans. What has happened since is as bad or worse than what Mother Nature did."
After Rivera asked why people aren't just being allowed to walk out of the Convention Center and go where they can get some help, Smith jumped back in:
"They won't let them walk out of there because I'm standing right above that Convention Center and what they've done is they've locked them in there. The government said 'you go here and you'll get help or you go to this Superdome and you'll get help.' And they didn't get help.

"They got locked in there and they watched people being killed around them and they watched people starving and they watched elderly people not get any medicine. And now they know it's happening because we've been telling them repeatedly over and over every day.
"
You know things aren't going well there when even Fox News can't find a way to make Team Bush's response look good. See the entire clip here at Crooks and Liars