Compare: NY Post and Upstate Diner

Well, the stories being told in the Post and my diner in Upstate Republican Country couldn't have been more different.  The Post was in full bore blame-it-on-the-victims mode.  Gunfire from those ingrates waitng to be rescued turns out to have been the only reason they weren't saved.  (And they had an inside front big color picture of people being picked up by buses in daylight yesterday at the "Convention Center."  Was that genuine?  I was away from TV, but it isn't consistent with what I was hearing.  A lie or am I mistaken?)

On the other hand, the guys at the counter told two quite different stories.  See below for what they took away from the day:

The guys' first story is one I recommend that everyone repeat, since it has more resonance with them even than Bush's "No one could have predicted ..." line.  It was the President's solution to gas prices:  "Don't buy gas if you don't need it."  They thought that was just great.  I intend to use that line as much as possible; it really works, even in Red Country.  Second, the guys were taken with our leaders' ignorance that people were waiting at the convention center -- and they graphically described that ignorance as seen on TV.  These are no bleeding-heart liberals and they were as close to being appalled as they ever get.

Our Leader is not playing well before the country, although the Republican noise machine is trying desperately to shift the blame to the victims themselves.  In that vein, I commend to you valor's diary of yesterday showing that 27% of households in New Orleans did not own a car.  I'm not sure how they expected those folks in wheelchairs, the mothers and babies, to get away.