Hell has no Fury Like the MSM Scorned

The press is angry that President has not taken their advise regarding Katrina. They're angry that there has not been more blood in the water over the administration's "bungling" of the relief efforts - the resignation of FEMA's Michael Brown is scant solace. They're perplexed that only 13% in a recent poll blame Bush for tardy relief.

One of the most egregious incidents of press rage occurred when NBC's David Gregory attempted to get Scott McClellan to state that the President had lost confidence in FEMA's Brown and Homeland Security Director Chertoff. McClellan had evidently been instructed that he should state that the President's priority was taking care of the refugees not playing the blame game. This wasn't good enough for the grandstanding Gregory. He wanted blood and grist for his appearance later that night on MSNBC's Hardball. He berated McClellan. He asked the same question over and over in different forms hoping to trip up McClellan. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, then Gregory needs help. He knows that McClellan can only say what he is instructed to say, so what was he trying to accomplish. His motive could only be furtherance of his blatant ant-Bush, anti-administration agenda and boosting rating for a poorly watched cable talking heads program.


CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday afternoon repeatedly prodded reluctant Congressional Black Caucus member Elijiah Cummings to blame racism for delays in rescuing hurricane victims in New Orleans. Blitzer asked Cummings on The Situation Room TV program: "Do you believe, if it was, in fact, a slow response, as many now believe it was,was it in part the result of racism?" When Cummings demurred from such a blanket accusation, Blitzer wouldn't give up: "There are some critics who are saying, and I don't know if you're among those, but people have said to me, had this happened in a predominantly white community, the federal government would have responded much more quickly. Do you believe that?"

LA Times' Michael Kinsley in his aptly titled piece "The fetid aroma of hindsight" has this about staging press rage on CNN:

The TV news networks, which only a few months ago were piously suppressing emotional fireworks by their pundits, are now piously encouraging their news anchors to break out of the emotional straitjackets and express outrage. A Los Angeles Times colleague of mine, appearing on CNN last week to talk about Katrina, was told by a producer to "get angry."

Anger has always been the purview of online bloggers. Is the MSM trying to muscle in on blogger territory?