Journey back to the summer of 2005. George W. Bush took office again in January of that year after four years in which the media claimed he had stolen the election from Al Gore. (Al Gore thought so too despite all evidence to the contrary.)

9/11 was still fresh in everyone’s minds but the national solidarity that had momentarily surrounded that event had just as quickly faded. The country was at war. In 2001, the Afghanistan war effort began to remove the Taliban and affiliated terror groups like al-Qaeda who had directly planned the 9/11 attacks. In 2003, the Congress had authorized the War against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the culmination of years of U.S. policy with the addition of the heightened threat of state-sponsored terrorism worldwide. The Media did not like these events. They could not understand how their efforts to stop the simpleton Bush had failed for five straight years.

Two elections. Two wars. And the mockery of the Texan with utilitarian laconic language sitting in office daily was too much. And now in the fall of 2005 they were resigned to three more years of a president who represented all that they thought wrong with America. They were determined to do something about it.

So when the fifth deadliest hurricane to make landfall in U.S. history rampaged through New Orleans, causing more than one thousand deaths and over one hundred billion dollars in destruction, the Media saw their opportunity. They would begin the Drumbeat — the steady pounding of negative stories intended to penetrate the American consciousness. You see, it takes more than a single story with a sensational headline to get Americans to pay attention. The information markets need to be saturated daily. Boom. Boom. Boom. It’s the percussion equivalent of Chinese water torture or perhaps blaring death metal at prisoners, and it is very effective.

If the substance of the story does not lead the general public to change their minds, the constant bombardment of the story itself will cause negative feelings to be evoked. And whatever is associated with the cadence — “Bush, Katrina — Katrina,Bush”– is a negative one in no small part due to the unrelenting nature of the Media war drums.

We are wired to handle negative information differently from positive information. It stays with us longer and has a great impact on our decision making. A steady current of negative information affects how we view any subject matter. We cannot avoid it. This phenomenon is different from the usual bias we see in the media — the stories of homelessness and environmental harm with stock footage of factories belching (usually steam) during Republican administrations but generally ignoring any such events during Democrat administrations. Do a search Ctrl+ F “Obama” in that previous story and nothing comes up. Odd that.

No, the Drumbeat is saved for special occasions like trying to force a sitting Republican President to resign or damage him so thoroughly that he could do nothing else during his tenure. Mission Accomplished.

The Drumbeat in Action

Stories of rapes at the Superdome, the refuge of last resort where many fled because of the delayed evacuation call by Mayor Ray Nagen (D) and Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) were thrown about. The Media ran with unconfirmed reports of mass walk-offs by local emergency personnel- police and firefighters. The Media portrayed the Bush Administration response in terms of imagery — Bush failing to visit in the immediate aftermath or focused entirely on what FEMA, one of several dozen participants in the disaster, was or was not doing. Even when Bush did visit the area, it was spun as a political move while being cruelly indifferent to the area due to race. Watch the first minute of that video from CBS News. In it, the disaster, all of it, is juxtaposed with a politically-acting GWB who is asked whether the poor response is due to the race of the residents:

The Media ran these items over and over and whatever terrible images — and there were many — they could. These were all juxtaposed with George W. Bush or the Bush Administration, rarely Mayer Nagen or Governor Kathleen Blanco, or simply straight reporting of the terrible situation caused by a natural disaster. I would venture a guess that even the most partisan conservatives amongst us would now say, “Yeah, not Bush’s best moment. Really kind of failed people.” Right? That is the vestigial image we have of Hurricane Katrina: an overwhelmed George W. Bush allowing people to drown. Weeks of stories turned into months of negative coverage dominating the headlines with the Bush Administration frozen in the headlights of the Media train bearing down on them; it took its intended toll and left the public with the impression of an incompetent, or even malevolent, administration.

But the events did not actually happen that way. At all. This piece by Lou Dolinar in 2006 recaps the Media response to Katrina versus the actual federal response and demolishes the narrative they created. Did you know the National Guard was actually set up in the Superdome with some 2000 troops and more than enough MRE’s for thousands and thousands of people? That this was the result of several days of planning and coordination with the federal government? Never heard that? I had not either.

Here’s Dolinar:

“Here’s another one: Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week?

Me neither. Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional, parenthetical mention in the national media. The National Guard had its headquarters for Katrina, not just a few peacekeeping troops, in what the media portrayed as the pit of Hell. Hell was one of the safest places to be in New Orleans, smelly as it was. The situation was always under control, not surprisingly because the people in control were always there.

From the Dome, the Louisiana Guard’s main command ran at least 2,500 troops who rode out the storm inside the city, a dozen emergency shelters, 200-plus boats, dozens of high-water vehicles, 150 helicopters, and a triage and medical center that handled up to 5,000 patients (and delivered 7 babies). The Guard command headquarters also coordinated efforts of the police, firefighters and scores of volunteers after the storm knocked out local radio, as well as other regular military and other state Guard units.”

2500 National Guard Troops stationed at the Superdome with boats, helicopters, satellite communication, MRE’s, a ready medical station with 15 doctors and 65 assisting medical personnel. There were no cannibalism episodes as was reported at the time. No rapes and chaos at the Superdome. There were no mass resignations by local personnel. This was as in command of a disaster as an organization could be. And the Media ignored it when it was not possible for an honest news reporting organization to do so.

More from Dolinar:

The operation was impossible to hide or ignore and some news outlets may have mentioned it in passing. Still, I haven’t seen anything reported that sounded like what the two Majors described Tuesday morning: helicopters landing every minute; big ones, like the National Guard Chinooks, literally shaking the decking of the rooftop parking lot; little ones like the ubiquitous Coast Guard Dolphins; Black Hawks everywhere, many with their regular seats torn out so they could accommodate more passengers, standing. Private air ambulance services evacuating patients from flood-threatened hospitals. Owners of private helicopters who showed up to volunteer, and were sent on their way with impromptu briefings on basic rescue needs. Overhead, helicopters stacked in a holding pattern.

The National Guard executed “10,244 sorties flown, 88,181 passengers moved, 18,834 cargo tons hauled, 17,411 saves by air.” Men and women working tirelessly around the clock to help their fellow Louisianians. The Coast Guard, another federal agency run by the Executive, saved approximately 30,000 lives and ran as efficiently as possible. It was estimated that all told the National Guard in conjunction with other agencies saved 50,000 lives with their efforts. This was the most extensive and successful air and water rescue operation in all of U.S. history. Why the silence on this story while the reporting on all others reached a crescendo on network news? Why indeed.

Were there problems in the face of this massive disaster? Of course. But the Media narrative reduced these down to a catchphrase by President Bush: “Huckuva job, Brownie.” This tactic would be used later during the Iraq War; a Media created synecdoche to represent out-of-touch incompetence. (By the way, Brown advocated for federal control of the city and it was Governor Blanco who dithered and eventually rejected that action. Whoops.)

How were these stories not told? How would 50,000 lives saved, an orderly federal force stationed in the middle of the city running a successful command center not be reported? Why would such an obvious presence and effort by the National Guard and other agencies be completely ignored by reporters who were on the ground? Here’s Louisiana State House Representative Francis Thompson (D):

“TV of the Superdome was perplexing to most folks,” Thompson said. “You had them playing the tapes of the same incidents over and over, it tends to bias your thinking some, you tend to think it’s worse than it really is.”

Boom. Boom. Boom. The Media powers had taken a terrible natural disaster and manufactured an even worse catastrophe while laying it all at the feet of George W. Bush. They ignored any positive actions being done, amplified the negative outcomes and wild stories, and painted a picture of total inaction by the federal government. And it was not by accident; It was their goal to enrage the population who had just voted for this man twice and lead them into open revolt. Some later candidates for office would take advantage of this mythology for their own gain as well.

(That is an interesting substory to the Media bias on display in its own right. The Drumbeat had worked so effectively to instill a chosen narrative into popular culture that a presidential candidate two years later could make the open claim that George Bush and his administration denied aid to New Orleans due to the skin color of the majority of the population there. N.B. that President Obama was knowingly stating a falsehood when he made that claim at his Hampton speech. We know this because he himself voted against waiving the Stafford Act, the impediment to providing quick financial aid due to matching funds requirements, prior to making this speech. And did the Media report on that particular story or claim? Of course not. It did not fall in synced rhythm with the Drumbeat. And they had a new cadence for the 2008 election to pound out.)