"The eager retailing of false reports like Broussard's is an
important reason why early public opinion polls placed
substantial blame for the catastrophe on the administration."
Oops, Never Mind
Power Line
On Sunday, September 4, Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, La., appeared on NBC's Meet the Press. He broke down as he told the story of a woman stranded in a nursing home who kept calling her son for help, day after day, until she finally died on September 2, ostensibly because the federal reaction to Hurricane Katrina was too slow.
Broussard's heart-wrenching story was a major moment in the anti-Bush media frenzy that followed the hurricane. Only it turns out Broussard's story was untrue. NBC has now issued a correction:
<<<
New details and interviews with the son whose mother died in the flood show that the tragedy unfolded from Saturday through Monday, Aug. 29 - not Monday through Friday, Sept. 2 as recounted by Broussard. The owners of the nursing home were indicted Tuesday for the deaths of more than 30 residents, which officials say occurred on Aug. 29.
>>>
So the patients at St. Rita nursing home died the same day the hurricane struck New Orleans. The purportedly slow federal response had nothing to do with it.
It's a little hard to understand how Broussard got his facts so wrong. He didn't just make a mistake on the date; he told the story in elaborate detail. Only every detail was false:
<<<
The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you.
Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.
RUSSERT: Mr. President...
BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody.
>>>
Here is what really happened:
<<<
Rodrigue said he didn't see or hear Broussard's comments on Meet the Press. When told of the sequence of phone calls that Broussard described on Meet the Press, Rodrigue said "No, no, that's not true."
"I contacted the nursing home two days before the storm [on Aug. 27th] and again on the 28th of August," Rodrigue said. "At the same time I talked to the nursing home I also talked to the emergency manager for St. Bernard Parish," Rodrigue said, "to encourage that nursing home to evacuate like they were supposed to and they didn't until it was too late."
>>>
This is the nursing home whose owners refused to evacuate, and are now under indictment due to the deaths of 34 patients and staff. The eager retailing of false reports like Broussard's is an important reason why early public opinion polls placed substantial blame for the catastrophe on the administration. Congratulations to the bloggers who were skeptical of this story and ultimately forced the correction.
Via InstaPundit.
*******
<My 2¢ - This whole myth (Read blatant lie) was used by a
liberal hack to get prominent MSM coverage so he could tell
additional lies about FEMA & the federal response to Katrina
& deflect criticism away from the grossly incompetent
response by state & local officials.>
******
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