Headlines of History, Unite

The big story thisa weeka involves two stories, so, lies already.

The first is the whuh, huh, whoaa, ohhh, waaaahhh, huhhh, awwww of Hurricane Gustav, who snootily stormed into the Gulf of Mexico and is on his way back to the mists without
so much as a Spike Lee short. But that has barely overshadowed the waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh of Governor Sarah Palin (AIP - AK) and her gosh darn inspirin can-do pilgrimage to all those fatcats in Waaaashington, dontchaknow. Senator McCain chose her essay above the 22,000 others and has brought her on his ticket, presumably a ticket with "Andrea Doria" written proudly upon it.

Both of these stories have been huge because of their unintended consequences: Gustav pushed thousands of residents out of New Orleans for (apparently) no apparent reason, since the hurricane didn't destroy the world, and Palin's almost impossibly checkered past is causing a wee bit of trouble in John McCain's campaign to not be a nation-wide laughingstock of incompetent planning, research, decision-making, and general unshittiness. Also, she had a baby and now her baby havin a baby and mmhmm it on now girl!

Yet led by the important news outlets of our time, CNN and Fox News (both high-powered by the electric generator connected to the spinning drybones of Ed Murrow), most media outlets choose not to look at the issues on their face value. But why would they? For example in the Gustav story, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, in conjunction with governor Bobby Jindal and FEMA Administrator R. David Paulson, decided to order a mandatory evacuation on Sunday in anticipation of the Monday morning hurricane strike, thus ordering over 200,000 NOLA residents out of the city and jamming the Louisiana and Mississippi state highways with over 1.9 million people over the weekend and despite the inflated estimate of $10 billion in oil damages the strength of the reinforced levees combined with the weakness and trajectory of the storm's landfall means thousands of families are stranded outside the state waiting for a slow-coming ok to come back into the blah blah blah you stopped reading this a fucking hour ago. That was just the abstract! THE ABSTRACT!

So instead, the next best thing is to look at the news the way the news was meant to be looked...at. We're gonna look at it like sports. Winners and losers, baby.

"McCain Turns Gustav Into an Asset"

"Gustav Could Be Boon To GOP"

"Palin Pioneer, Maverick, and now a Game Changer"

"Did The Media Take Swipes At Sarah Palin?"

The latter being, of course, a special report by the media. These are just an example of the fantastic journalistic activity in the nation right now. And boy oh boy do they pay tribute to the past standards of excellence, following in line with famous headlines of years past:

"Big Fat Gain For Big Fat Taft: Our Vessels Don't Sink And Drown 1,500"

"Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor, Apparent Benefit For Japan War Machine"

"Reagan's State Of Union Buoyed By Emotional Prayer For Lost Challenger; Oh, No One Told You? Yeah, They Exploded"

"LBJ To Stay In Play With JFK's Brains All Astray"

"Royal Family Stands To Lose After Antoinette, Louis Beheadings"

Facts are boring. Scores are not! 1-0, scores!

(crossposted at Too Much Ice Cream)