He didn’t want to…Really!But he did it…
BECK: I don`t want to kick a city when it`s down, but I just — I mean, we`re not even rebuilding it properly.
I find it very difficult in some ways to feel bad for New Orleans,
because you`ve voted your government in. It`s a bad government. You
didn`t know that after Katrina, as you were sitting there and the buses
were underwater, but the city of New Orleans would like to let you know
that crime usually decreases during Mardi Gras.
Tonight he brought out some old canards…the buses, corruption and of course not just any recent murder but one of the most sensational in the city.
He had on WSJ’s Chris Cooper who is co-author of “Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security.” I met Cooper at the Rising Tide conference and he knows his stuff. Right off he tells Beck …”The biggest problem is, frankly, the federal government.” Beck didn’t like that of course. But Cooper at least was able to explain how cost sharing requirements of the Stafford Act have held up the recovery and that the $110 billion is really only $26 billion for Louisiana.
Beck dismissed those facts instead blaming crime and corruption in New Orleans because ya know Glenn is an expert… at opinion.
I think Beck was working off this article by Cooper when he discussed the CSX railroad bridge. In the article Cooper compares private vs public sector in how a railroad bridge has been rebuilt while a public automobile bridge has not. Not only did Beck twist Cooper’s premise to make his own point but he also gave the impression this is a New Orleans problem to boot when he stated…“CSX, the railroad, has already rebuilt the bridges coming into New
Orleans. Private industry got it done, because they had to. They`re
still pricing out and taking bids, you know, for the freeway system in
New Orleans.”
That was just dandy of Glenn but one problem which given his expertise on this he had to know… those bridges are in Mississippi! But if you’re kicking a city down well so what if you’re a little wide right.
Finally Beck’s selective use of one of the most troubling murders in NOLA to blame families was particularly odious. Cooper responded with remarks on poverty which was such a buzz kill for Glenn who was obviously going for the… they’re just animals… line of understanding.
So here’s Beck in all his finest assholery to kick a city when it’s down, not on just any day, but on Their Day…what a dick.
He really is a dick and why CNN employs him is a mystery. He’s not very smart, he’s smug and makes Nancy Grace look reasonable, and he’s stupidly opinionated.
And did I mention that he’s a dick?
It sounds like Cooper handled him pretty well though.
Mardi Gras, and New Orleans heritage in General, gives them a wedge. People are going to get on one side of that line or the other. And the people on the “other” side are the people who are going to vote for their dudes. Those people are going to find mardi gras – on the surface of course- distasteful. Distasteful because it’s on the “ecstatic” end of the spectrum, which is also the “exotic” side, which is on opposite side of the spectrum from things held dear by most conservative whites
They aren’t going to examine it closely, so don’t talk to them about the finer points of culture or religion or tradition in relation to Mardi Gras.
It’s about their visceral reaction to ecstatic, exotic, exuberance — dancing, alcohol, sexuality, oh, and brown people. Poor brown people who should be working, not celebrating, if their life is so hard anyway.
It’s enough for them to get started with- it’s divisive and provokes a reaction for them to exploit.
Cooper was a star at Rising Tide. A star. He is just so damned good at logically and sequentially refuting every single erroneous point someone tries to make.
However, this was different. Beck has no facts, just opinion. Kind of hard to refute someone’s opinion; you can only show them that the things they base their opinion on are incorrect, invalid, or unsubstantiated.
I’ll bet my children that Beck hasn’t read Cooper’s book, because if he did, he wouldn’t have asked such asinine questions.
Cooper won’t talk about something unless he’s extremely well prepared. Beck has no such problem.
Duckman, plus, not to be petty, but the dude is not particularly telegenic. I could see keeping him on if he’s some kind of legendary showman, but I’ve watched his hatefest a couple of times, and both times it was a guy in an ugly shirt smirking into the camera, on a set that looked like the bar in my uncle’s basement, and come to think of it, the most schlubby and racist of my male relatives would have made more sense and had more charisma.
Maybe he was good on the radio, but he’s not even entertaining. And I usually find that kind of shit hilarious.
A.