I was recently talking to gbaikie about the Right's highly-developed rhetorical techniques, and I recommended the he check out The Daily Show's frequent video montages, showing Republican after Republican speaking exactly the same words. I saw one last night, and found the video clip on their site. Synergistically, it's the phrase "blame game" bouncing around the echo chamber, so it's also relevant to a conversation today with Tom about synchronized rhetoric.

Another example is yesterday's press briefing by White House flak McClellan, in which he uses "blame game" eight times. [transcript]

Warning: The first four minutes of the video savages Michaels Brown and Chertoff. Powerful stuff, but that's not the part of the clip I wanted to highlight.

...although the clips of Brown and Chernoff's statements are relevant to the general discussion of the response to Katrina, and I think I should note them for future reference:

At 1:30, there's an interview from last Thursday (9/1) with Brown by, I think Paula Zahn (CNN?).

Brown: "Every person in that uh convention center, we just learned about that today."

Paula"Sir, you're not telling me" [Brown tries to talk over] "Sir, you're not telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today are you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?"

(long pause)

Brown: "Paula, the Federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today."

At 3:10 begins the famous grilling of Chertoff by Tim Russert on Sunday's Meet the Press. There's a line in which Chertoff seems to either be unfamiliar with own department's disaster blueprint, the NRP, or he's...well, you know, engaging in a little freelance blame-gaming:

Chertoff: "Tim, the way that that that emergency operations act under the...under the law is that the uh responsibility and the the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials." </blockqquote>

Finally, at 4:00 begins the "blame game" montage.

Enough with the buildup, already. Go to Comedy Central's Headlines video index, and select "Meet the F**kers" (you can see why this must be on Flame)