By David Edwards on 9/8/2005, 9:00am PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards

As the right-wing talking heads began their lockstep effort to deflect blame and obscure truth about hurricane relief efforts, Media Matters has been monitoring the lies, distractions and talking points. Media Matters has alerted the media about their continuing efforts of helping to enable the spread of these malicious falsehoods:

In the past week, Bush administration officials and conservative commentators have repeatedly used the national media to spread misinformation about the federal government's widely criticized response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

1. Bush: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees"

2. Chertoff strained credulity in defense of Bush, claimed levee breaks and massive flooding came as a surprise --- more than 12 hours after local media reported them

3. Brown: "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day"

4. Chertoff: "Apparently, some time on Wednesday, people started to go to the convention center spontaneously"

5. Chertoff pointed fingers: "New Orleans officials and the state officials ... called for the Superdome to be the refuge of last resort"

6. Chertoff falsely minimized federal government's role in Katrina response as subordinate to states

7. Wash. Post, Newsweek, Gingrich falsely claimed that Blanco did not declare a state of emergency

8. Gingrich falsely claimed that Nagin could "have kept water pumped out" of city had he ensured that pumps worked

Read the Media Matters article and learn how each of the corporate media organizations quickly went from being the brave first-responders we saw reporting the Katrina story to a mere tool for spreading Bush Administration propagana.

Crooks and Liars also has nice video from MSNBC showing the timeline of lies.

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