A CNN anchorwoman had an unfortunate accident during President Bush’s visit to New Orleans at the anniversary of hurricane Katrina. She nipped out for a pee with her wireless mike still on and the sounds were broadcast live in the background of his speech. There doesn’t seem to have been anything very embarrassing said — certainly no thunderous outbursts of flatulence and vomiting, which listening to the president might have provoked in some people.
In fact, most of what could be heard in the background was absolutely sweet. She was talking to some unidentified woman at the hand basins and said ” I’m very lucky in that regard with my husband. My husband is handsome and he is genuinely a loving, you know, no ego [unintelligible] you know what I’m saying. Just a really passionate, compassionate great, great human being. And they exist. They do exist. They’re hard to find. Yup. But they are out there.”
The whole thing was excavated, though, by some bunch of right-wing loonies who believe that CNN is a socialist and anti-American organisation; and if you go to the site where they have posted the video and transcript you will find at the end of the story this curious piece of boilerplate: “Love what you see here? We need your help to continue exposing liberal media lies”
I know that almost everyone in television lies almost all the time about everything. That’s just the way the business is. But it is still a remarkable testament to the frothing hatred that powers much of the American Right that this woman talking unaffectedly about how much she loves her husband should be jammed into the template of “liberal media lies”.