Why Struggle through a Brierney Column When Roger Ailes Does it For Me?

I was wrong when I wrote that Brierney One disappeared behind the pay wall with an unfunny column exposing his lack of understanding of the Roberts confirmation hearings.   It turns out that he disappeared behind the pay wall with a dishonest column that exposed his lack of understanding of the role of government in providing for the  public's safety.  He rambled for what felt like 9,000 words but was closer to 900, about a private ambulance company that came through where FEMA couldn't, rescuing people in New Orleans.  As Roger Ailes notes, he was less than honest:

Tierney claims the only radio network that survived the hurricane was Acadian's private one. But he admits, later on, that both of the company's New Orleans radio antennae were destroyed in the hurricane, and that Acadian was forced to use government equipment from a neighboring parish in order to communicate. (Presumably Tierney isn't such a libertarian lunatic that he opposes the role of local governments in public safety, but he is dishonest enough to downplay the use of public assets and the efforts of local officials to weave his fable of private supermen.)

Likewise, Tierney fails to acknowledge that federal government played a significant part in the creation of that satellite technology Acadian used, and ignores the rescue efforts of those evil bureaucrats in the Coast Guard. (I'll take a wild guess that Acadian's R&D investment in actual satellites was zero.)

Ailes closes by eloquently making the point that everyone in the corporate media is deliberately missing and which is the number one talking point of La Norquista:

Although Tierney may pretend otherwise, the dividing line between competence and incompetence in response to emergencies is not a private vs. public divide. The incompetence of FEMA and DHS was the consequence of Bush appointing political cronies and other Republican parasites to leadership positions.  (And he's just repeated the same mistake, with Karl Rove, if we charitably call it a mistake.)  The bureaucracy is only as incompetent as the Chimp in Charge.

This is the drum we should be beating.

Comments

[Scott Lemieux]

Calling is previous column "unfunny" seems like such a gross understatement...

[eRobin]

Understatement is my strength. Or is it unfocused rage?

[Scott Lemieux]

I think it's your rare combination of understated unfocused rage!