Thursday, September 30, 2004
Stormy weather
How charitable can you get? Agence France Presse provides the answer:
This is a classic no-win situation as far as the media is concerned: Bush goes to visit the damages areas - he's an opportunist who cynically uses disaster to get himself more exposure. Bush doesn't go - he's ignoring the plight of Floridians, because he's too busy trying to put a positive spin on the disaster in Iraq. But wait - he has to go anyway, because the first debate is taking place in Miami. Imagine the outcry if he just turned up for the debate and ignored the locals: "The President was today accused of putting his re-election ahead of compassion for hurricane victims as he refused to tour the hardest hit areas, choosing instead to continue preparing for tonight's debate."
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"The President, using official duties to political advantage in a battleground state, toured Florida orange groves pummelled in three hurricanes since August which killed 100 people and wreaked billions of dollars in damage."The question that many in the media will I'm sure be trying very hard to answer is, just how did the President manage to arrange a series of natural disasters to hit a swing state just in time to provide him with a perfect photo opportunity? Perhaps we should start calling Karl Rove "He Who Controls the Winds."
This is a classic no-win situation as far as the media is concerned: Bush goes to visit the damages areas - he's an opportunist who cynically uses disaster to get himself more exposure. Bush doesn't go - he's ignoring the plight of Floridians, because he's too busy trying to put a positive spin on the disaster in Iraq. But wait - he has to go anyway, because the first debate is taking place in Miami. Imagine the outcry if he just turned up for the debate and ignored the locals: "The President was today accused of putting his re-election ahead of compassion for hurricane victims as he refused to tour the hardest hit areas, choosing instead to continue preparing for tonight's debate."
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