Sniff Sniff

Yesterday (8th Sept.) my local morning newspaper, the Press and Journal - Voice of the North, published a letter complaining about the way the UK media has been criticising Bush over the response to Hurricane Katrina.
It's not on the P&J website so I took the liberty of taking a scan.
A sample:

However, expecting Mr Bush and the federal government to be primarily responsible is like expecting the EU to be responsible for disaster relief in the UK.

Well, no. In the case of a national disaster the people of the UK would expect the national government to be responsible. That seems to be what the people of the US thought too (until very recently anyway).

Interestingly, the use of the word "primarily" means there may be some hint of legitimacy in the statement itself. What this argument does brilliantly is distract attention from those 5 or so days when just about every report from N.O. said "why are the Feds not here yet, where is the cavalry?" It clearly took far too long for the federal efforts to start having an effect on the ground.

The thing which struck me about the letter though was that I read it not long after I'd read this.

In a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove's tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats.

Interesting parallels. So is the Whitehouse really going as far as to plant astroturf in my local Scottish newspaper? I just can't believe that's likely. I think it's more likely to be the work of someone caught up in the snowball effect created by Rove's propaganda.

To be honest, I'm starting to feel grubby by association just reading about this stuff. I may not blog anything else on this for a while.

I wonder if I could just mention that the American Red Cross seems to be doing an excellent job helping those affected by Katrina. I believe they are funded almost entirely by donations from the public.