If The Stiletto were cynical, she might believe that the reason the MSM – and their cable cousins – keep harping on the “incompetence” of the Bush Administration in general - and FEMA in particular - in managing rescue and relief efforts in the midst of a natural storm of biblical proportions is to deflect examination and  criticism of their own bumbling, biased performance.

Now that the one-year anniversary of the storm is nigh upon us (August 29), some media critics think it’s high time to turn the spotlight on the media and its failings giving storm victims – and the American public – timely, accurate, objective reports. Lorie Byrd, for one, gives the media an “F”:

Reporting of unsubstantiated rumors was especially rampant in coverage of the New Orleans Superdome and Convention Center. Politicians repeating the stories gave them additional credibility and resulted in them receiving even more coverage. A month after the storm hit, the Los Angeles Times described some of the misreporting:

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified "rapes," and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of "scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials."

Indeed, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a national television audience on "Oprah" three weeks ago of people "in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."

The Los Angeles Times story then offered some possible reasons for the bad reports. “Journalists and officials who have reviewed the Katrina disaster blamed the inaccurate reporting in large measure on the breakdown of telephone service, which prevented dissemination of accurate reports to those most in need of the information. Race may have also played a factor.”

Call me crazy, but another factor may have been the eagerness of some reporters to latch onto any story that could be used as an example of government incompetence, while giving much less attention to the extraordinary and unprecedented, and extremely successful, operation by the Coast Guard to rescue thousands of people in very dangerous conditions.

Stories, such as the one published by the L.A. Times cited above, did alert the public to some of the bad reporting during Katrina, but those stories got much less attention than the original reports. What was even more pervasive than the factually incorrect reports, however, were blanket statements about the racial component of the story and the tone of the reports, which were often more critical of federal government efforts than those of state and local governments.

While I don’t expect journalists to point out all the mistakes they made, it will be interesting to see whether or not the politicians commenting on the anniversary will make any effort to correct the record where gross misperceptions remain. More interesting will be to observe whether any of those politicians still cite incorrect information from those original wrong reports one year later.

Will there be a Jayson Blair level of scrutiny into what went wrong, why and how it could be fixed? The Stiletto won’t hold her breath. After all, Anderson Cooper got to be a rising star on CNN by shedding tears over Katrina; Fox News’ Shep Smith’s air time increased dramatically after he gave vent to his righteous indignation; and the Times-Picayune won two Pulitzer Prizes in 2006 – one of them for Breaking News Reporting.

The Stones Don’t Roll (Or Rock) The Way They Use To

Tickets to a series of homecoming concerts in England by The Rolling Stones are still available. In fact, ticket sales are so weak that concert promoters have taken out newspaper ads and put up billboards on all main roads leading into London advertising them, according to the Daily Mail. eBay can’t even unload ‘em, despite bids starting as low as one penny. To add insult to injury, Saga – a company that offers discounted goods and services to senior citizens – is offering half-price tickets on its Web site. Says Saga spokesperson Paul Green:

'We're delighted to be able to offer our customers this fantastic opportunity to see one of the world's greatest rock 'n' roll bands.

'It's an indication of what a lively bunch of today's older people are that we can encourage them to go to stadium rock concerts.

Given that the combined age of the band members is 249 years – that’s in people years, not dog years – time is not on the side of the Stones’ fan base, which is aging as fast as they are. If this is a typical Stones fan, then it’s time for the guys to put the skinny leather pants and eyeliner away and join Saga for great deals on travel, insurance and financial services:

Wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt, baggy pants and white socks, a long-haired Catherine C. Mayo, 59, appeared in federal court yesterday on a charge of interfering with a flight crew on United 932 as it flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Washington, D.C. 

It’s not that The Stiletto lacks sympathy for the poor old devils, but Jack Flash ain’t jumping no more – he’s riding around on a scooter.

Update:

Is Islamofascism Really Fascism?

Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius asks, “Are We Fighting Islamic Fascists?” and answers a bold, “Yes and no.”

His argument for “yes” is pretty strong:

Ernst Nolte's "Three Faces of Fascism," a classic study of the social forces that created fascist movements in France, Italy and Germany during the 1920s and '30s … concludes … Fascism is "resistance to transcendence" … rebellion against the liberating but destabilizing transformations of modern society.

In the countries where it took root, fascism began as a middle-class assault on the liberal elites who were creating that era's version of globalization. Jews were a special target, but they were also symbols of a larger internationalist movement. …

The fascist revolt against "transcendence" was driven in part by rage against the perceived corruption of the European elites, who were thought to have grown rich during the booming, inflationary years of the 1920s at the expense of the hardworking middle class. The final malign motivation in Germany was shame and indignation over the nation's defeat in World War I. Fascism gave ordinary people an explanation of what had gone wrong in their lives – and someone to blame.

I do see many of these same factors in the growing popularity of radical Islam in the Middle East.  …

Today's Muslim radicals, like the Nazis in Germany, gain support by promising dignity for a people who feel shamed by defeat in war. That's the appeal of Hezbollah's leader, Hasan Nasrallah: The Arabs feel they have suffered 40 years of military humiliation from Israel. Nasrallah offers the tonic of defiance and, for the moment at least, a sort of victory. That makes him a hero, even though he brought on the ruination of Lebanon.

In many ways … [“Islamic fascists”] does capture the rage that fuels America's enemies. What is most pernicious about the movement is that, as with European fascism, it has made Jews the symbol for larger forces that confound angry Muslims. This is perverse: The corrupt elites who obstruct Iranians, Egyptians, Syrians and Saudis today are their own rulers and their legions of fixers and bagmen, not Israeli Jews.

And then, Ignatius blinks:

Yet I balk at the term. The notion that we are fighting "Islamic fascists" blurs the conflict, widening the enemy to many if not all Muslims. It's as if we were to call Hitler and Mussolini "Christian fascists," implying that it is their religion, not resistance to transcendence, that is the root cause of the problem.

The Stiletto thinks that Ignatius has it exactly backwards. European fascism has little or nothing to do with Christianity, whereas Islamofascism has everything to do with Sharia law – which is the root cause of the resistance to transcendence throughout the Islamic world. The proof is the inexorable spread of Wahhabism, an uncompromising, fundamentalist Islamic theology that originated in Saudi Arabia that seeks to “restore Islam from … innovations, superstitions, deviances, heresies and idolatries,” according to Jim Kouri, a top executive of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.

Even the less orthodox Shia and Sunni Muslims – who are not considered Islamic enough by Wahhabis, BTW – living in Western countries resist assimilation. The result is that their allegiance to the tenets and practices of Islam is stronger than to the mores and cultures of the countries in which they live – whether they are recent immigrants, or first-generation citizens. As columnist Cal Thomas notes so pithily:

The British are still shocked that people who are born in their country, go to their schools, have British accents and eat fish and chips would kill their fellow Brits. They do so because their allegiance is not to Britain, or to the Queen, but rather to their perverted view of God and the instructions from the hate preachers telling them to go bag some Jews, Christians, Westerners and other “infidels.”

Want more proof that resistance to transcendence at the heart of Islamic fascism is rooted in religious fanaticism? Consider this: The Taliban’s new terror tactic in Afghanistan is to torch newly built schools – even when class is in session and teachers and students die as a result. Why? According to Reuters: “Most of the schools attacked are co-educational. The Taliban banned girls from school during its 5-year rule and has warned teachers against allowing girls. Suspected militants recently shot dead a lecturer in front of his pupils after he defied them.”