No wonder so many Democrats get mad at Bob Somerby- he is honest:
Broussard’s story gained massive attention—but his chronology never seemed to make sense, and it now seems that it was just wrong. The woman in question drowned early in the New Orleans flood, not on Day Five, as Broussard had said. For all of FEMA’s apparent bungling, it’s hard to see how it can be blamed for what occurred in this now-famous incident. (The nursing home’s owners are now under indictment.) By the way: This incident occurred in St. Bernard Parish, not in New Orleans, so Mayor Nagin was in no way involved.
Given the huge publicity this appearance received—and given Broussard’s partisan tilt on September 4—we don’t see why Russert shouldn’t have had him back to clarify what occurred. This Sunday, it would have been perfectly easy for Broussard to say that he simply got his chronology wrong in the chaos and emotion of that first week. But instead, he played the demagogue, questioning the motives of those who have corrected him and still asserting that the woman drowned on the Friday night. Sorry, we thought Broussard’s performance this Sunday was phony. We think Dems will get rid of leaders like this if they want to be widely trusted—if they want to be able to criticize pseudo-cons for their endless dissembling and faking.
Given that half the leadership for the party I voted for is under investigation or indictment, I should probably pipe down about honesty…
Slide
Cole’s definition of an honest person is someone that agrees with him. Convenient isn’t it?
Bob
Okay, you convinced me. I’ll never vote for Broussard because he didn’t have the chronology of the old woman’s death right.
Maybe now we can go over the chronology of George Bush’s military service.
p.lukasiak
This time, Somersby is right, Broussard should just say he got the chronology of this particular event confused because of everything else that was going on……
I am not so sure about the end of the ‘revolution,’ considering I don’t think they have been behaving like Republicans for a while now.
Only half? Considering that Broussard is the Louisiana equivalent of a County official, and the GOPsters who are being investigated are the actual top dogs, a sense of proportion would be appropriate as well….
John S.
Nah, I find it highly amusing when you rail about these things…while you browbeat the low man on the totem pole, the face sitting up on top smiles down on you.
Slartibartfast
Let’s not underestimate the power of “county officials” around larger urban areas, ok? Richard Crotty is one of the more powerful politicians in the state of Florida, and yes, he’s the “Orange County Mayor”, which is simply a name change from head of the county commission. He’s arguably more powerful than the mayor of Orlando.
Trivia: his kid is the “boy who yawned”.
jobiuspublius
Daily Howler is great. It’s the closets I get to a journalism course.
Rusty Shackleford
Given that half the leadership for the party I voted for is under investigation or indictment, I should probably pipe down about honesty…
Half?
White House – Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, et al
Senate – Bill Frist
House – Tom DeLay
It looks like you hit the trifecta.
If the Democrats had any type of power whatsoever you could add a real investigation into the lies used by Bush and Cheney to sell the war in Iraq.
Republicans and conservatives sold our country to a guild of thieves and liars because of nothing more than spite.
skip
Wow! You mean someone got something wrong during the chaos attending Katrina? Hyperbole too? What a surprise.
If the guy is a windbag he is a windbag. A politician you say? What a surprise,
James C.
He also highlighted these quotes relative to Hurricane Katrina, I believe:
“What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died.”
— Ted Kennedy on Hurricane Katrina
“Ditto”
— Mary Jo Kopechne
Ancient Purple
Wow! On and on about this you go, John.
If only you had spent this much bandwith castigating the anonymous “senior administrative official” who said that Gov. Blanco never issued a State of Emergency proclaimation for the State of Louisiana.
If only.
Shygetz
Yeah, I think that guy went too far. There were enough actual screw-ups to use to rake FEMA over the coals; don’t need to make them up, too.
Davebo
Wow!
“We think Dems will get rid of leaders like this if they want to be widely trusted”
So now Broussard is a Dem leader???
DougJ
Davebo, have no idea how powerful Broussard is? Do you live on under a rock? The guy controls the House, the Senate, all of K Street. There’s a cable news network that does his bidding. He landed on an aircraft carrier to announce the end of the flooding in Jefferson Parrish. He’ll never be thoroughly investigated because his cronies run the Department of Justice. How naive can you be?
Defense Guy
I know, let’s excuse this lie because others have lied in the past, and hey it’s not like he has any real ‘power’ anyway, so what’s the harm?
From now on there will be no mention of Pol Pot becuase his power to murder millions pales in comparison to that of Hitler or Lenin or Stalin or Mao. In fact, only the very top elitist of the elites may be castigated for their lies.
Let us not lock up the murderers who have only killed one when there are others that have killed two…
Steve S
It doesn’t matter than the woman died. It’s whether she died on tuesday or wednesday that matters.
Whatever. The only people who seem to care about this are Republican hacks still trying to figure a way to blame FEMA’s problems on local officials. First it was the Gov and that didn’t work… then it was New Orleans mayor and that didn’t work. Now the blame is on the president of a suburban development project.
Soon they’ll be blaming the county dog catcher for not doing enough!
ET
I don’t know who Somersby is but he doesn’t know shit about the politics of that area. Dems will get rid of Broussard when hell freezes over. That man is so connected to everything that dumping him means loosing any foot hold the dems have in a very conservative area (think David Duke country). That would be like getting rid of Harry Lee – ain’t ever gonna happen – until he wants it to happen.
Non New Orleanians translating New Orelans and Jeff Parish politics though the prism of D.C. politics are domed to disappointment.
What Broussard said may be questioned by people watching Russert – but I bet you that they aren’t Broussard voters. They won’t care and are likely to cheer him on.
As for Broussard playing the demagog – please this is LA – think Hewy P. Long, Russell Long, Edwin Edwards – these guys are weaned on this type of behavior. That is LA politics, that is parish, city/town politics. Expected a LA politician not to act that way – well there are no LA politicians who don’t act that way – so you aren’t likely to see it.
I may be exaggerating just a touch to make a point, but not by much. Call me cynical but 18+ years of watching LA, N.O. will do it to you.
scs
You all should be politicians. You are great at deflecting the story. I think more of you should have just guts to admit you were wrong. (And I know you all will then say, “yes we will admit we were wrong when Bush admits he was wrong about WMD etc…) Case in point?
Boronx
I haven’t read Cole in a few days, but speaking of honesty, did he ever correct his misinformation about the Clinton budget? It’s a small matter, but telling one way or another.