"The erroneous 10,000 figure, in the eyes of some commentators, seems to be evidence that the media has exaggerated the extent of the Katrina disaster--and the importance of the Katrina story. Noting on Monday that the current death toll in New Orleans stood at 579, Cliff May crowed on National Review Online that the number was not only less than 10,000 but was also 'much less than the more than 35,000 killed by a heat wave in Europe two summers ago. You recall the debate that set off about European heartlessness, racism, and discrimination? No, neither do I.'
Meanwhile, conservative columnist Victor Davis Hanson declared: 'For all the media's efforts to turn the natural disaster of New Orleans into a racist nightmare, a death knell for one or the other political parties or an indictment of American culture at large, it was none of that at all. What we did endure instead were slick but poorly educated journalists, worried not about truth but about preempting their rivals with an ever-more-hysterical story, all in a fuzzy context of political correctness about race, the environment and the war.' And the influential conservative blog Powerline went even further in commenting on the incorrect death toll estimate, blustering: '[T]he MSM'--that's mainstream media in blogspeak--'was so busy pointing its finger at President Bush that it largely missed the magnitude and accomplishments of the federal relief.'
"This overweening desire to defend President Bush, of course, is what likely explains conservatives' attempts to transform understandable confusion over Katrina's death toll into a talking point in their brief against the media's coverage of the storm. After all, it's practically impossible to defend the Bush administration's response to the hurricane on the merits--not after the canning of Michael Brown and the president's own mea culpa (or, as close as he'll ever get to one). So blaming the media for exaggerating the extent of the crisis the storm precipitated is the only option the president's defenders are left with."
Jonah Goldberg has the temerity to make fun of the coverage:
"The press was blindsided again. As Hurricane Rita barreled toward Key West, television news executives were unprepared to deal with the lamentable divide this storm would undoubtedly reveal between gay America and straight America.
"You'd think the media would have learned their lesson. After Katrina, the press corps waited a full two days after the storm hit before it was able to report that one of America's poorest and blackest cities was full of poor and black people. Surely, this time around the Fourth Estate would hit the ground running with up-to-the-minute exposes on the 'Other' Other America and trenchant-yet-lachrymose essays on What This Says About America, that one of America's zestiest gay resorts was left to twist in the wind.
"The questions raised by unlovely Rita are as painful as they are obvious. Will gays stay behind in disproportionate numbers in this disproportionately gay city? If so, Why? If gay marriage were legalized, could some of this disaster be avoided? Would George W. Bush have responded more quickly if the victims were just a tad less stylish? And, of course: Will the federal government help keep Key West festive?...
"This all might sound a bit absurd, but this isn't far from where we are today."
Daniel Drezner , a disenchanted Bush supporter, posts a comment about recent criticism of the prez by other conservatives:
"Funny, these are the same guys who idolized him for the first five years of his presidency. What changed, all of a sudden? Certainly not Bush, he is still acting the same way he has his entire career.
"What's changed is that after five years of presidency, the elections are finally over. It is now safe to criticise Bush, because such criticism can't possibly matter any more - it can't affect his reelection chances.
"Forgive me if I don't perceive this as responsible conservatism. Responsibility would have been criticising him before it's too late to do anything about his weaknesses. Responsibility would have been getting Mike Brown out of there before Katrina hit. Responsibility would have been getting Rumsfeld out of there before Iraq was a total loss. What we're seeing now isn't just too little, too late --- it's *intentionally* too little, too late. The criticism was intentionally postponed until it no longer mattered."
