The Blame Game

Salon has put together a really terrific collection of clips, demonstrating how the White House disseminates "talking points" to the Fox News Network, which they then use to dictate their coverage of a given event.

Here, we see White House Spokesman Scott McClellan introduce the concept of the "blame game" to reporters. Basically, his idea is that any attempt to blame anyone for the federal government's insanely slow response to Hurricane Katrina is futile, pointless and offensive, and that discussion should be limited exclusively to how to help those who have been affected by the disaster.

Then, we see a full day's worth of Fox News coverage in which their anchors harp on this very same idea. They mock and ridicule Democrats who complain about the slow FEMA response time and lackadaisical White House response to arguably the greatest environmental and humanitarian catastrophe in US History. "How dare they blame anyone for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The President can't create a hurricane!"

And then, of course, they turn right around and start blaming other people. Mainly they blame the (black Democrat) mayor of New Orleans and the (Democrat) governor of Louisiana. Oh, and they helpfully include that clip of that guy telling "Tricky" Dick Cheney to go fuck himself.

But the real reason I had to blog this video is Bill O'Reilly's comments. If you read the blog frequently, you know I fucking hate Bill O'Reilly passionately. This is why. Listen to him in this clip. He first says he wants all American kids to have to watch footage of the citizens of New Orleans struggling to survive in the cruel aftermath of a horrific storm.

Okay, fine...That's a good thing, right? You want kids to be informed about the world around them, to see the world as it is and to understand how things like natural disasters and lax governmental responses can cause horrible losses of human life.

But, no. Bill wants them to watch it as a cautionary tale, to let them know that the only way to survive a natural disaster is to become a rich capitalist conformist consumer halfwit.

This is an actual quote that appears on screen while Bill is talking:

TEACHERS SHOULD TELL KIDS IF THEY DON'T WORK HARD OR IF THEY BECOME ADDICTED, THEY'LL BE POOR AND POWERLESS

Yes, that's right, folks. Bill O'Reilly thinks that the New Orleans situation is a good example of righteous retribution for a life of laziness. Poor black people living in the poorest state in the union, deep in the heart of the overty-racist South, are naturally themselves to blame for the cyclical poverty that has devastated their communities since that time, not so long ago, when their grandparents and great-grandparents were owned by rich white landowners.

Bill, I know you're not that stupid. Are you?