What the MSM is not telling us

The following comment posted on a thread regarding the Louisiana National Guard at Free Republic captures a growing sentiment about the initial lack of response in New Orleans:

It is so obvious that it's the governor's and mayor's fault that people are starting to laugh at the MSM. Everyone except the "reporters" and "Democratic Morons" know where the responsibility lies.

My two sentence letter to the MSM and DNC will read as follows: If according to Media reports and fellow democrats, the Fed's are responsible for everything then there is no need for local or state governments anymore. I believe we can do away with them and inaugurate President Bush as Mayor of Chicago and Governor of Illinois immediately.

It's too cute by half to see many in the MSM forget their civic lessons on state and federal relations and immediately start laying the blame at the federal level without fully exploring the first responder responsibilities that exist at the state and local levels.

Additional analysis and excellent contributions in the commentary provided in these two CQ posts, Congress Takes Five Days To Act, Criticizes 'Bureaucracy' and WaPo On Katrina: It Starts Locally.

Update: New Orleans didn't follow its own hurricane disaster plan. How long, if ever, before we get this detail from the the liberal MSM? This young man didn't read the plan, but showed a lot of initiative.

Update 2: From Powerline:

The mainstream media's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the disasters in New Orleans is a disgrace, possibly the worst instance yet of media bias. Insane claims by left-wing nuts that President Bush botched the recovery effort on purpose so as to kill black people are repeated by the MSM in a chin-stroking mode, as if to say, "It's an interesting question--they might be on to something." Meanwhile, no one points out that it was President Bush who implored Governor Blanco to issue a first-ever mandatory evacuation order for the city, an action by the President that probably saved tens of thousands of lives.

Update 3: This is interesting. Anyone seen this story on why the police radio system went down in New Orleans in the MSM yet? New Orleans radio system flooded provides the details.

Let's see the liberal MSM try to blame Bush for the decision to not have the system self-contained with its own backup power supply.

Update 4: Some behind the scenes details on the Federal Administration working with the Louisiana State Government from The Argus:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Democrat. Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move was comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

Let's see...If everything was going to plan up to the point of the request for the federal takeover, why would anyone in the Louisiana State government be concerned about blame being assessed? And blame for what at that point in time that the power struggle emerged? Could it be blame for totally screwing up their responsibility as a first responder?

When Bush said "unacceptable" some in the MSM assumed he was referring to the federal response.

However, consider the following from the Washington Post on Bush's first use of the characterization:

Bush, who almost never publicly acknowledges mistakes, paid deference to the rage yesterday with a rare concession that his administration's efforts fell short in the opening days of the crisis. "The results are not acceptable," he told reporters on the South Lawn before leaving the White House for his tour of afflicted areas. He added: "We'll get on top of this situation, and we're going to help people that need help."

Bush never said directly that the 'federal' response was unacceptable. It appears, The Washington Post is making the assumption that the 'unacceptable' characterization is referring to the federal response.

Considering the information noted above about Governor Blanco's resistance, it may be that Bush was instead referring to the State of Louisiana's response.

Have the media asked Bush to clarify his statement to determine if it's referring to the 'federal' response or to the State of Louisiana response?

Update 5: WizBang is also commenting on the state/federal power struggle and notes:

I don't have time to explain... but trust me... when the history of this thing is written, Gov Blanco will be near criminally liable.

Update 6: APOCALYPSE NOW IN NEW ORLEANS Taking bets on seeing this type of analysis in the liberal MSM. Read every word!

Update 7: If you've come to this post, you're looking for information on the response to New Orleans that you're not getting from the liberal MSM. That being the case, you should read the complete transcript of this Department of Defense Briefing which has this important information from a briefing:

Q: One quick follow-up. Is it fair to say, using the convention center as an example, that one reason it took until Friday to get aid in is the National Guard needed time to build up a response team with military police to ensure law and order because the New Orleans Police Department had degraded so much?

GEN. BLUM: That is not only fair, it is accurate. You've concisely stated exactly what was needed, and I told you why. We took the time to build the right force. The outcome was superb. No lives hurt, nobody injured. It was done almost invisibly.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

Update 8: By definition, you will never see the sentiment and analysis provided provided by this excellent post entitled 'Tribes' in the liberal MSM. Trust that you will not have wasted your time in reading it. Here's just one excerpt from the post to whet your appetite:

It may come as a bit of a shock to these worldly sophisticates, who are so quick to point out how parochial and ignorant we simple folk are, that the United States of America has local, state and federal governments! And that this is the order in which crises are dealt with!

A person of some modest education might have remembered that the worship and adulation fostered after 9/11 was for the NYPD and the FDNY. No one was buying FEMA hats after 9/11, because FEMA is essentially a mop-up agency. It's the first responders, the local governments, that will determine if a city will live or die. The State -- that means, the "governor"-- has the sole authority to mobilize the National Guard, and the governor of the state of Louisana was not only slow to do that, she turned down NG assistance from several OTHER states as well. The President does not have the authority to drop precious egg salad sandwiches from Michael Moore's missing helicopters. We do this ON PURPOSE. We limit the power of the federal government, as those of us fortunate enough to have spent time in Civics, rather than Self Esteem classes, are aware. This is so that we do not develop a central power so strong that eventually we end up with idiot inbred royals, or Presidentes for life, on the face of OUR money.