Two more items have surfaced on Bush’s fake photo op to the damaged areas. The first item has to do with the already-observed fact that one of the backdrops for Bush’s visit was a coast guard hangar with at least two helicopters sitting idle while people suffered and died from lack of rescue not far away. Why were the coast guard helicopters and several coast guard officers just sitting there doing nothing when thousands were still in peril? So they could make Bush look presidential.

Here’s the new item: according to a NOLA.com (a Times-Picayune subsidiary) story, air traffic in the area was halted for security reasons while Bush was there:

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.

The second item: the U.S. media continues to whore for Bush: note that even in criticisms, none mention Bush by name; none point in his direction, though they do point at others, specifically Democratic Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin; and none of the aired interviews with survivors contain references to Bush, though a brief glance at international stories show that survivors regularly blast Bush severely–so why barely a hint of this gets through in the U.S. press?

The second item is in a story reported on by Dutch ZDF, a public television network, an organization with a reputation for good reporting. The story goes beyond the photo op that the American media slavishly abides by. It reports that Bush’s visit was carefully staged for the cameras: flunkies came through an area, disposing of dead bodies and clearing the worst or most unsightly of debris; disaster aid was brought in specially so Bush could be seen in front of assistance brought; and then immediately following Bush’s visit, the aid was removed, and the town left to fend for itself just as before. In short, a Potemkin village, a sham, a facade for the cameras. The story is here; this is a crude Google translation; this is a more sophisticated translation by a viewer:

“Clean-up operation only for Bush?

Where the US President visited the disaster area, aid units cleaned up the area. But only there. Reporting from Biloxi, ZDF correspondent Claudia Rueggeberg cited desperate inhabitants [of Biloxi telling her] Bush should have transported aid materials inside his limousines instead of a bunch of body guards and media correspondents.

Along his [Bush] travel route aid units removed debris and recovered corpses. Then Bush left and along with him, all aid troops left too. The situation in Biloxi remains unchanged, nothing has arrived, everything is still needed.”

In short, Bush grounded rescue operations and then prettied up small portions of the area so he could pose in front of faked relief efforts, while real food sat baking in the sun, and rescue operations ground to a halt. If these reports are indeed true, Bush would then be without question guilty of killing Americans in distress for the base purpose of a political photo opportunity.

But hey, there are two ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices to nominate–how can the U.S. media be expected to keep up?