Fox Shock Jocks Over the Top

Readers who share a conspiratorial bent with the
Dowbrigade may have noticed a sea change in the New Orleans coverage
on Saturday. This occurred following one of the most disturbing exchanges
we have ever seen on live television, as FOX News’ Geraldo Rivera and
Shepard
Smith, a few blocks apart outside the ad hoc refugee gathering point
at the New Orleans Convention center, simultaneously decomposed on camera.

Maybe it was the strain of three straight days and nights of disaster
coverage and lack of sleep.  Maybe it was the incredible scenes of pathos and tragedy
which broke down the journalistic reserve of even these battle-hardened
correspondants. Maybe it was frustration with their inability to grab
their customary control of the situation.  But Geraldo was hysterical,
tears streaming down his cheeks as he held a bewildered brown baby up
to the camera. Shep seemed to be losing his grip as we watched, blubbering
almost incoherently into the microphone about the inhumanity of the forces
of order.  Most unprofessional….

SMITH: They won’t let them walk out of the convention
center. .. they’ve locked
them
in
there.
The
government
said, "You
go here, and you’ll get help," or, "You go in that Superdome
and you’ll get help."

And they didn’t get help. They got locked in there. And they watched
people being killed around them. And they watched people starving. And
they watched elderly
people not get any medicine
…

And they’ve set up a checkpoint. And anyone who walks up out of that city now
is turned around. You are not allowed to go to Gretna, Louisiana, from New Orleans,
Louisiana. Over there, there’s hope. Over there, there’s electricity. Over there,
there is food and water. But you cannot go from there to there. The government
will not allow you to do it. It’s a fact.

HANNITY: All right, Shep, I want to get some perspective here, because earlier
today…

SMITH: That is perspective! That is all the perspective you need!

Starting to panic, in-studio host Sean Hannity switches to Geraldo, and things
go from bad to worse:

RIVERA (holding aloft a baby): Sean, I want everyone in the world to see, six
days after Katrina swept through this city, five days after the levee collapsed,
this baby-this baby-how old is this baby?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ten months old

RIVERA: Look in the face of the baby. This is it. This is it. No sugar coating,
no political spin, no Republicans or Democrats. People suffering.

Let them go. Let them out of here. Let them go. Let them walk over this damn
interstate, and let them out of here.

HANNITY: All right. Thanks, Geraldo. Appreciate it. We appreciate and from New
Orleans tonight.

[here is a link
to the video for those who suspect us of exaggeration]

And then, the next morning, miraculously, providentially,
coincidentally, the tenor of the coverage changed.  There were stories
of hope and heroism.  The cavalry was arriving.  Stories of
recsued kids, old people and pets started outnumbering graphic depictions
of destruction, lawlessness and death. The healing had begun.

Is it so paranoid to imagine an apocolyptic pre-dawn
phone call to Rupert Murdock from someone at the White House, perhaps
even
Prince
of Darkness Darth Cheney himself, yanking the chain around the necks
of those pretty boy talking heads?

The Prima Donnas are still on the air, but toned way
down, almost contrite, back pulling their weight as team players, looking
on
the positive
side. After all, what good is it to have a free press if you can’t freely
manipulte it once in a while?