{"id":8280,"date":"2006-08-23T14:43:50","date_gmt":"2006-08-23T18:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8280.html"},"modified":"2006-08-23T14:43:50","modified_gmt":"2006-08-23T18:43:50","slug":"meet-rockey-vaccarella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/meet-rockey-vaccarella\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Rockey Vaccarella"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the anniversary of the Katrina disaster quickly approaching, the White House is scrambling to put the president in a positive light, presenting Bush as someone who has followed through on the crisis, all evidence to the contrary<\/a> notwithstanding.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, the Bush gang arranged a WH photo-op<\/a> this morning with a gentleman named Rockey Vaccarella, whom the president said “caught his attention” because he came to DC to speak with officials about the ongoing need for aid along the Gulf Coast. Bush said Vaccarella is “the kind of fellow I feel comfortable talking to.” Vaccarella apparently feels the same way.<\/p>\n

“You know, it’s really amazing when a small man like me from St. Bernard Parish can meet the President of the United States. The President is a people person. I knew that from the beginning. I was confident that I could meet President Bush.<\/p>\n

“And my mission was very simple. I wanted to thank President Bush for the millions of FEMA trailers that were brought down there. They gave roofs over people’s head. People had the chance to have baths, air condition. We have TV, we have toiletry, we have things that are necessities that we can live upon. […]<\/p>\n

“I just wish the President could have another term in Washington. You know, I wish you had another four years, man. If we had this President for another four years, I think we’d be great.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, to hear the Bush gang tell it, this was just a regular guy who happened to be in town in his FEMA trailer, stopped by the White House, and told the president about the ongoing crisis along the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

As you might have guessed, there’s a little more to it than that.
\n
\nAs Will Bunch explained<\/a>, Vaccarella just so happens to have a background in GOP politics.<\/p>\n

Turns out that the earthy Vaccarella — a highly successful businessman in the fast-food industry — is indeed a Republican pol, having run unsuccessfully under the GOP banner for a seat on the St. Bernard Parish commission back in 1999. […]<\/p>\n

And in fact, Vaccarella seemed very confident that he would be meeting with Bush when he left home, to the point where he had a date scheduled<\/a> and everything: Dinner with the President is planned for the evening of August 22nd<\/i>. […]<\/p>\n

Shouldn’t the media be a tad more skeptical about events like these? And isn’t the fact that Vaccarella was once a Republican candidate for office a relevant fact that should be mentioned, to help viewers place his effusive, nationally televised praise in context?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, the media should<\/i> be more skeptical about such an obviously manufactured photo-op; and yes, Vaccarella’s partisan background is completely relevant.<\/p>\n

CNN’s Rick Sanchez expressed some surprise at Vaccarella’s amazing progress today, telling viewers Vaccarella has “actually been invited inside. He wanted to go and met with the president. Well, guess what, the president has decided to meet with him.” Viewers are led to believe this was all rather spontaneous.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it’s all-too-typical. The media buys into the Kabuki Theater as if it were real, while the White House pretends to be genuinely interested in meeting with a person who can represent everyone who’s suffered along the Gulf Coast, but instead arranges a photo-op with a GOP activist who tells the nation how great it would be if Bush had a third term.<\/p>\n

Raise your hand if you’re surprised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the anniversary of the Katrina disaster quickly approaching, the White House is scrambling to put the president in a positive light, presenting Bush as someone who has followed through on the crisis, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. With this in mind, the Bush gang arranged a WH photo-op this morning with a gentleman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}