From Kevin Drum in The Washington Monthly:
There was a striking discrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.ZDF News reported that the president’s visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of ‘news people’ had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.
The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.
Lately it seems as though the US media has reached back and rediscovered its spine. I hope they’ll follow up on this if it’s true.
Update - September 7, 2005
But wait… there’s more!
And a friend wrote to compliment me on the wordsmithing of “Potemkin Village Idiot”. I googled it and found that the phrase has only been used three times before and I’m the first to apply it to Bush. It seems so completely appropriate. Pass it on!