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The Lights Came on in NOLA, but Only for a Bush Photo Op

by Last Night in Little Rock

The lights came on in the New Orleans warehouse district, near Jackson square, on Thursday night, and the people rejoiced. Their City was coming back to life.

But, when the President's speech was over, somebody was told to pull the plug. Brian Williams reports for NBC's Nightly News:

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

"As you were, citizens of New Orleans."

When President Lyndon Johnson saw the CBS Evening News one night and Walter Cronkite said that the War in Vietnam was "unwinnable" (see here), Johnson said "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."

Bush doesn't give a rat's a** about middle America. But, then again, he wouldn't be watching the Nightly News either, in part for that very reason. He's succeeded in losing the entirety of the media. Even his cheerleaders and given up on being apologists.

And so it goes...

Update: Maureen Dowd in the NY Times wrote a great piece on this photo op.

All Andrew Jackson's horses, and all the Boy King's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. His gladiatorial walk across the darkened greensward, past a St. Louis Cathedral bathed in moon glow from White House klieg lights, just seemed to intensify the sense of an isolated, out-of-touch president clinging to hollow symbols as his disastrous disaster agency continues to flail.

In a ruined city - still largely without power, stinking with piles of garbage and still 40 percent submerged; where people are foraging in the miasma and muck for food, corpses and the sentimental detritus of their lives; and where unbearably sad stories continue to spill out about hordes of evacuees who lost their homes and patients who died in hospitals without either electricity or rescuers - isn't it rather tasteless, not to mention a waste of energy, to haul in White House generators just to give the president a burnished skin tone and a prettified background?

The slick White House TV production team was trying to salvage W.'s "High Noon" snap with some snazzy Hollywood-style lighting - the same Reaganesque stagecraft they had provided when W. made a prime-time television address from Ellis Island on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. On that occasion, Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer, and Bob DeServi, a former NBC cameraman and a lighting expert, rented three barges of giant Musco lights, the kind used for "Monday Night Football" and Rolling Stones concerts, floated them across New York Harbor and illuminated the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop for Mr. Bush.

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    So, is this finally it? Are we awake yet?

    Re: The Lights Came on in NOLA, but Only for a Bu (none / 0) (#2)
    by Edger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:57 PM EST
    Re: The Lights Came on in NOLA, but Only for a Bu (none / 0) (#3)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:57 PM EST
    Damn - the Coincidence President gets unlucky again!

    Re: The Lights Came on in NOLA, but Only for a Bu (none / 0) (#4)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:57 PM EST
    Shameless F***s. But why should they care when most of amurrika doesn't? We've no one to blame but ourselves.

    "why should they care when most of amurrika doesn't" Your data is lacking. Five years of vote fraud doesn't produce a plebicite. Polls of 1,000 persons do NOT predict the feelings or attitudes of 200 million adults. Small sample error is nothing to be proud of, as if you were the NYT. Love ya otherwise, Che.

    Re: The Lights Came on in NOLA, but Only for a Bu (none / 0) (#6)
    by desertswine on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:58 PM EST
    SOP for George W. Potempkin, the child-man president.

    Can't turn on the lights in our 51st state 'Baghdad' after two years, so what hope does Louisiana have? Three words: James D. Witt.

    Re: The Lights Came on in NOLA, but Only for a Bu (none / 0) (#8)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:58 PM EST
    Not george w potemkin, george w catherine bush;-)

    Of course, those would be the WRONG three words. Sorry. James LEE Witt.

    2.6 MILLION PEOPLE evacuated during the Hurricane Floyd disaster, by a functional FEMA. I wonder how many of those people know that Bill Clinton SAVED THEIR FAMILIES. You know, the guy who put James L. Witt in charge. As opposed to an incompetent Michael Brown, and the rest of the incompetent cronies. That's one way to get people to vote for you. Bring them water, save their children, and don't shoot their dogs. But Bush doesn't have to worry about elections -- never did.

    Re: The Lights Came on in NOLA, but Only for a Bu (none / 0) (#11)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:03:59 PM EST
    Five years of vote fraud doesn't produce a plebicite. Polls of 1,000 persons do NOT predict the feelings or attitudes of 200 million adults. You got me there PIL. No arguements.