In its Katrina coverage, the MSM made hay at President Bush's expense in suggesting that the government's sluggish response was the result of racism.
Given the early and energetic preparations of government at all levels for Rita, you might think that it would impossible for the MSM to recycle the racism canard. But that didn't stop the Today show from giving it the old college try this morning.
Lester Holt normally strikes me as a solid professional. In footage from yesterday aired on this morning's show, Holt reported from Galveston, covering the last of the evacuees, largely poor people it seemed, being put on school buses "who had no other way to leave."
Holt asked what appeared to be a poor black man sitting on a school bus about to be evacuated: "were you afraid that you could be left behind here?"
The implication was unmistakable, the 'subliminable' message clear: "were you afraid that you could be abandoned here in the same way that people [overwhelmingly black in numbers] were left to fend for themselves at the convention center and elsewhere in New Orleans?"
You can't blame an MSM reporter for trying. Exploiting the racial divide for political gain is what they do.
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Finkelstein has degrees from Cornell University and Harvard Law
School.He lives in Ithaca, NY where he hosts "Right Angle," a local
political talk show. Finkelstein specializes in exposing liberal bias
at NBC's Today Show.
