Whatever you say about Junior, he has 'good' PR people in spite of himself

[Nikki Stone 1]

Today's media event was well designed for both domestic and international consumption. Domestically, people had been worried sick for 4 1/2 days over dying people in a flooded ghost town. Today's media blitz was designed to relieve the emotional turmoil---the equivalent of "THe United States Marines have arrived!"

All the right images were shown: rescue vehicles, food and water trucks, people being airlifted out--a drop in the bucket, but effective PR. The pix of Bush hugging people--including two African American girls. (I'll bet ol' Bill told him to do that.) Whoever is handling spin in the White House is a master at it. The faithful came back to the fold; the angry middle of the roaders responded to the emotion and decided he was a hero; the liberals got mad because the real message of this whole thing got lost, but the message wasn't for us anyway. The international community got an image--whether they believe it or not--of a President in charge who cared for his people.

The only people who weren't fooled were those who have kept very informed about the issues, those of us who would vote for a banana slug before we'd vote for Junior, and the African American community who knew very well they had been left for days and resented being used for a photo op. I saw those tired people on CNN: one raised a hand to tiredly and bleakly wave, but the rest didn't look at the camera, knowing that they were being used.

And how many people are still dying? We didn't see them today, so we don't know.


The worst thing is that the cell phones are now working occasionally and the friend I have been dying to hear from finally called around the same time as the media circus. She's alive and well, thank God. Wonder if they timed the cell tower repairs for the time of the media event. Then again, I am the suspicious type.

[SmokingJacket]

1. Depends how you define "good." nt

[Nikki Stone 1]

4. Let's just say "highly skilled"

That's pretty much implied in what I wrote. No one could get the idea of morally good from my text.

[Nikki Stone 1]

11. Put the quote marks in it. Hope that clarifies

.

[Birthmark]

2. I thought it was a transparent, cynical ploy

Several people I've discussed this with see it the same way.

[Nikki Stone 1]

7. Of COURSE it was a cynical ploy. I'll bet some of those trucks were empty

But they played the media and the played the majority of the American people.

[onecent]

3. must be karen, the bitch

[Nikki Stone 1]

9. Hmmm.... Not Rove?

?

[peaches2003]

5. A shame

I hope someone will be able to track how many died in the days since the aid COULD have been in NOLA, but was held to make this grand entrance with King George. It's a crime.

[Nikki Stone 1]

10. Yes, We must keep track of every death this bastard caused

I know the Congressional Black Caucus won't forget. I certainly won't. And I'm sure the people on this board won't. But we've got to understand the monster that we are dealing with. I think the Dems do and I think they are hemmed into a corner, PR-wise. I think that's why we don't hear much from them.

[Neocondriac]

6. Nikki?????

...remember that Albert Speer , Hitlers Architect, was imprisoned as well.

[Nikki Stone 1]

8. Sweety, I see this as a complete manipulation of people's feelings

and I consider all such manipulations--based on lies--as evil. I don't like getting beat, but I think we did today. And it's frustrating.

[mikeytherat]

12. If one can spin this positively to the peeps, they don't need a PR machine

Our government's response to this disaster has been resoundly abysmal, and the whole damn world has seen it. If any politician/talking head/PR flak, of any stripe, can make the population see this as some sort of phenomenal success and compassion tour, then we could sell them dogshit and tell 'em they're diamonds. And they would believe it.

More likely, the victims of this debacle are shell-shocked and ANYTHING is looking good right now.

mikey_the_rat