Dear Media, do you really want to be outdone by DU again?

GWB wants an investigation, and Sen. Clinton wants one. While those investigations will conclude many months from now, you, the media can hurdle over what every citizen hates: bureaucratic dithering and time wasted. You can investigate right now!

Oh, the power you wield!

Already on DU I see people putting information and timelines together regarding who did what over the past eleven days. A great deal of information is bound to be lost or disappear if we do not act now.

Do you really want to be outdone by a little website AGAIN?

Is there any such thing as an "investigative reporter" anymore?
Would you guys who are left get together and work something out?

Newspapers? Will you back this? Please?

I think it's clear by now that not a one of us is safe anymore. Given the level of incompetence on display, any of us could be a goner.

Think of someone you love, imagine them stuck in New Orleans. Imagine them starving to death.

I daresay many of you already have and some of you have seen these unnecessary horrors first-hand. You don't even need to play "imagine if". No one really has to use their imagination in order to weep with hopelessness and sorrow at what has happened.

I'm just saying that anyone we ourselves know and cherish can be next to die or suffer needlessly in a natural disaster or a terrorist strike.

Our families are worth protecting, every American is. As George says "love our neighbors like we like to be loved ourselves." Of course George's contorted expansion of a famous saying is just that--something he says.

Countless reporters and news professionals proved over the past week how much more they understand that bromide than does GWB. I don't know any of you, and yet I "kvell" like a mama when I think of the reports I have witnessed.

The kind of failure and negligence that led to what tragically continues in New Orleans is criminal, is it not? Will some of you try to find out?

We are going to need someone to counter what the White House puts out there to protect itself.

I saw you Shepard Smith, I saw you trying to be a fair and balanced reporter as that white-haired pompadoured dude (sorry, I don't normally watch FOX) tried to get you to say the local government in Louisiana made terrible mistakes, that they were to blame.

Over and over he tried, he all but winked to cue your response. But Mr. Shepard stood his ground and would not jump in with the full-throated "Oh my, YES!" that the host wanted to hear.

All over the country reporters and hosts of news shows rise. They stand and now wait for the truth before answering pompadoured hosts' impertinent questions.

as for investigations, many of the families of 9/11 waited and were disappointed with the investigation into that day. Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband on 9/11 has called the conclusions a "white-wash", and we know she's right. The investigations for the current crisis will be more of the same.

The results of any investigation are as predictable as Scott McClellan's response to a question he doesn't wish to answer.

For the most part, the only clean investigators of government are free and honest members of the press. You are our voice. There are only so many letters to the editor we the people can write. and far less of those letters see print.

So you are our voice. We need you, we always will.

Next to the troops who fight for us, you are the greatest defenders of Democracy. And the fact is, when all is said and done--you are charged with the duty to protect even them.

Besides, you don't really want Vanity Fair and Daily Kos to show you up, now do you?

...for Cokie Roberts :eyes:

Maybe some of them are perusing this

in the following article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4671904

"Not for decades has there been such merciless questioning of the president and his administration by the US media." :thumbsup:

Still, all day yesterday I heard the news reporting that "there's plenty of blame to go around" We know that isn't true.
Please start refuting that with these facts:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

And to a thank you to CNN, but I heard no mention of this timeline on CNN cable yesterday. Perhaps broadcasters can start using it on air? It is possible I missed it. It seems we should be hearing this truthful timeline at least as often as we're hearing the "plenty of blame" meme, which is only an opinion with no facts to back it up.

I heard folks saying we need to have investigations months from now.
But like the Bush response to Katrina, that will be too little, too late and will just serve to allow the government pattern of failure to continue on unchallenged.

Because that's how obnoxious I am.

Helen Thomas. :thumbsup: A woman who knows how to do her job, even when faced with rude little punks from the White House.