Digby: Your Lyin' Eyes

It's depressing that you have to get this elementary with the American press, but you do. There is something called cause and effect. Any of you out there who don't know what that means can use your friend, Mr Google, to find out what it is.

New Orleans is a largely black city. Most of those who did not evacuate were poor African Americans. In the day after Katrina, pictures of victims standing on rooftops emerged. Heroic rescues were filmed. In short order we saw pictures of looting --- which immediately sent the wingnuts into a frenzy. This immediately led to cries for martial law --- stories of shooting, killing and rape followed. (Interestingly, this story in which photojournalists on the scene were interviewed early on indicates that while looting and theft were common, the violence they observed was mostly perpetrated by nervous police.)