Tell It Like It Is

He will be vilified by the Right, be accused of "politicising" a moment that should have been politics free, and maybe be thought of as grandstanding. But dammit, Kanye West told it like it is last night on the NBC mini-telethon. The multi-platinum rapper/producer whose new album, Late Registration, is about to zoom up to #1 next week, was presenting, rather than performing, on the show last night. You can see the video at Crooks and Liars (helpfully, in both Windows Media and Quicktime). The Washington Post also has the transcript:

West and Mike Myers had been paired up to appear about halfway through the show. Their assignment: Take turns reading a script describing the breach in the levees around New Orleans. Myers: The landscape of the city has changed dramatically, tragically and perhaps irreversibly. There is now over 25 feet of water where there was once city streets and thriving neighborhoods. (Myers throws to West, who looked extremely nervous in his super-preppy designer rugby shirt and white pants, which is not like the arrogant West and which, in retrospect, should have been a tip-off.) West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us! (West throws back to Myers, who is looking like a guy who stopped on the tarmac to tie his shoe and got hit in the back with the 8:30 to La Guardia.) Myers: And subtle, but in many ways even more profoundly devastating, is the lasting damage to the survivors' will to rebuild and remain in the area. The destruction of the spirit of the people of southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all. (And, because Myers is apparently as dumb as his Alfalfa hair, he throws it back to West.) West: George Bush doesn't care about black people! (Back to Myers, now looking like the 8:30 to La Guardia turned around and caught him square between the eyes.) Myers: Please call . . [...] West's comments would be cut from the West Coast feed, an NBC spokeswoman told The TV Column. (The Associated Press later reported that only his comment about the president was edited out.) The show was live on the East Coast with a several-second delay; someone with his finger on a button was keeping an ear peeled in case someone uttered an obscenity but did not realize that West had gone off-script, the spokeswoman said.

Also at Crooks and Liars is this amazing video of Sheppard Smith and Geraldo Rivera reporting from New Orleans on the Hannity and Tool (sorry... Colmes) show. I gotta give it to Smith--for the first time in my memory, he wasn't sugar-coating anything. He was visibily frustrated and pissed off at the lack of governmental response and the plight of the citizenry, often responding to queries about when aid would arrive or what people would do next with a blunt, "I don't know." When Hannity tried to bring the discussion back into a rhetorical let's-put-this-into-perspective discussion, Smith basically shouted, "This is perspective!"

That's at the end of the video. But Smith's appearances bookend Geraldo Rivera's reporting from the New Orleans convention center, where he breaks down into tears describing what he sees around him, holding a baby and exhorting the nation to look into the child's face. Knowing Rivera's over-the-top mentality, I always have my suspicions about his actions on camera, but it felt very, very despairingly real.