Where Was Obama Thursday?

In spite of the fact that Louisiana is holding her primary today, Williams somehow has managed to maintain his and "Nightly's" news blackout on New Orleans. He had nothing about Obama's appearance in that city, which should have focused new attention on her and on storm and flood recovery. Nor did Williams air anything about Bill Clinton's appearances there yesterday.

An Open Letter to Brian Williams follows--if it doesn't appear on Daily Nightly, it's been censored.

Dear Brian,

My NOLA friend recently said that Louisiana had turned out to be important due to Super Tuesday's not being conclusive for the Democrats--and added, "Maybe there is justice after all."

Sadly, so far she has been proven wrong because you and your newscast don't seem to be into justice. Your campaign coverage has sucked because of the way in order to maintain your self-censorship and news blackout on New Orleans you've been spinning Washington State as the big contest instead of covering in depth the lead-up to Louisiana's primary.

Were you even aware that Barack Obama campaigned in New Orleans Thursday--and Bill Clinton appeared there yesterday, in his wife's place? You did not even cover Obama's appearance at Tulane--where Obama said his administration would do a much better job rebuilding New Orleans than has the Bush administration. This would have been an excellent opportunity to cover Obama's Gulf Region plan. And yesterday you could have done what CNN did--aired a piece on how frustrated New Orleanians are that New Orleans and Katrina haven't been treated as valid campaign issues. That would have been far more important and newsworthy than last night's coverage out of Washington State--which has been spun as the "biggie" for obvious political reasons.

Or, on Thursday when you could have covered Obama's Tulane speech, were you too busy covering the CPAC wingnuts nostalgic for Ronald Reagan, regarding whose successors, as Michael Eric Dyson says in his book "Come Hell Or High Water: Hurricane Katrina And The Color Of Disaster,"

"...As the ideological children of Ronald Reagan, Bush and his adminstration have thrived on tax cuts, downsizing, the neglect of civic infrastructure, the shredding of the safety net, the will to privatization, the drgrading of the public sector, and advocating Reagan's idea that government is the enemy of the people. The Bush administration's incompetence in Katrina was the most devastating indictment of such a philosophy...."

Your support of these CPAC whackjobs, the Bush administration, and the party that drowned New Orleans and doesn't want to rebuild her is showing in this coverage decision.

I saw your Mardi Gras newsbrief Tuesday--but since that was a newsbrief and not a story, last night's newscast is the 31st since you last aired a full report out of New Orleans. You need to reopen your New Orleans bureau permanently and bring back full coverage out of that city.

Louisiana 1976