In this week's U.S. News & World Report, Terence Samuel's profile of "fascinating" Arlen Specter, the "inscrutable" moderate chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is accompanied by a box of mini-biographies titled "Other Players in the Drama." Notice the subtle contrasts in Republican and Democrat profiles.

-- Orrin Hatch is "solidly conservative with a masterful grasp of the process." A label, and a compliment. But Patrick Leahy is not "solidly liberal." He is merely "the panel's top Democrat, he has attacked Roberts as too rigid, and too politically far right for the court." He's not labeled, but he's allowed to cast others as extreme. Hmm.

So President Bush was blamed for Hurricane Katrina, because he wouldn't support and sign the Kyoto protocol. And he was responsible for the slow Federal response, because he was vacationing in Texas/golfing in Arizona/giving a speech in California. And he didn't care about saving the people in New Orleans because they're black. And now we discover that his diabolical foresight is staggering. Because back in April, he added hardships to the people victimized by Katrina, essentially setting a trap for them, and springing it with the storm. At least that's what this Knight-Ridder story (New bankruptcy law imposes more burdens on Katrina survivors) seems to be implying...

Hurricane Katrina survivors whose finances are in shambles may not qualify for federal bankruptcy protection once a new law with tough eligibility restrictions takes effect Oct. 17. And anyone who intends to file before the new standards take effect must overcome other Katrina complications such as injuries, being moved to out-of-state shelters, the loss of personal financial records and the closure of the five federal courthouses in hurricane-ravaged areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention & Consumer Protection Act, which President Bush signed into law April 20, allows only people who earn less than their states' median income to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, which lets them erase their debts after they forfeit their assets.

The question that leaps to mind is "does he get blamed for the environmental disaster of Lake Pontchartrain next, or is there something else before they get to that?"

Lyflines - Lyford's other blog…

Olbermann's arrogant hypocrisy. On Tuesday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann misidentified Tom DeLay as the House "Minority" Leader, an error for which he soon conceded that "I'd like to give you a good explanation for it, but there wasn't one. I just kicked it." But the night before, Olbermann had launched a five-minute diatribe which pegged great meaning to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's miscue that "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater." Olbermann thundered: "Well, there's your problem right there. If ever a slip of the tongue defined a government's response to a crisis." Olbermann soon provided ridicule: "Anybody seen the Vice President lately, the man whose message this time last year was 'I will protect you, the other guy might let you die'? I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant. For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been, as we were taught in social studies it should always be, whether or not I voted for this President, he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week." Olbermann also suggested Bush looked "like a 21st century Marie Antoinette."

Full MRC CyberAlert item follows.

Olbermann was dead on in his commentary.  There are times where Keith can really go way off the reservation, but his observations last night were brilliant.

Louisiana Democrats can lambaste Bush and the federal government's response to hurricane Katrina all they want without objection from the Times. But let Republican Gov. Haley Barbour dare praise the federal response, and it "raises eyebrows." That's according to a Tuesday story from reporter Michael Cooper, "Bush Has Staunch Defender Amid Critics on Gulf Coast." The text box reads: "Praise for the federal response from a rising G.O.P. star raises eyebrows in his state."

"Mr. Barbour's praise of the federal efforts has put him at odds with some other Mississippi officials who have bemoaned the slow response in their areas and has put him at risk of sounding like a Pollyanna to Mississippians still struggling in the storm's aftermath. But the strategy is unsurprising for a canny political strategist like Mr. Barbour -- a former political director in the Reagan White House, chairman of the Republican Party, and powerful Washington lobbyist -- who won the governorship two years ago by in part emphasizing the strength of his close ties to President Bush."

The Christian Science Monitor notes how book publishers are now looking to blogs as a way to promote their books.

"Just a year ago, screenwriter and aspiring novelist Mark Sarvas had a lot of explaining to do. When he talked up his fledgling book blog at a publishing conference, marketers had just one question for him: Huh?

"But this year, Mr. Sarvas returned to the same conference and found that publicists weren't mystified by blogs anymore. Instead, they wanted to know what they could do for him. "We are not the strange, unfamiliar beast we may have been before," says Sarvas, creator of a blog called The Elegant Variation.

"Although no one's exactly sure how influential they are, bloggers like Sarvas have become the new darlings of the publishing industry. They're getting free review copies, landing interviews with prestigious authors, and trying to boost obscure writers - especially writers in the literary fiction world where John Irving is a bigger name than John Grisham."

A major news event follows a very routine pattern. First, we get the hard news phase, where reporters relate the unfolding dramatic facts. In the second phase, those same reporters become analysts, commentators passing moral and political judgment on the story. By its nature, the first phase tends to be devoid of bias. But the second phase often comes loaded with politicized gotchas and predictable liberal editorializing.

Hurricane Katrina and its flooding aftermath in New Orleans is a good example. No one can fault reporters’ emotional statements as they eyewitness the tragedy. Nor is it inappropriate for them to ask the tough questions about the government’s – local, state and federal – wholly inadequate preparation and response. But viewers should be tiring of the Monday morning grandstanding, particularly the rush to judgment when so many facts are still as murky as the standing water in New Orleans.

Normally, I don’t comment on the columns of Cynthia Tucker, Editorial Page Editor of the Atlanta Constitution. It isn’t worth it. But she has finally jumped the shark.

To prove that the “poor are on [their] own,” she cites this article:

“In fact, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune used just those words to describe the hurricane evacuation plan authorities put in place for residents who didn't own cars. Reporter Bruce Nolan wrote in July, ‘City, state and federal authorities are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own. In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.’ ”