PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

The New York Times is out with a detailed story today (1.22.010) about how the White House is pulling all the stops to show the president busy and concerned, an active, in the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake. The big fear seemed to have been that Obama might fall into a Bush corner of a slow, indifferent response which he could not escape in the public mind.

Obama in no case would have been blamed as Bush was, because Haiti is an entirely different situation: outside the country, an island and hard to reach. It would not be a wild guess to say that two weeks ago fewer than 10% of Americans could find Haiti on a map without assistance. In a few days, a couple of weeks at most, Haiti will fall back off the radar and into a deep hole of indifference. That’s just the way it is in America with “foreign news”, we’ve just got too much on our agenda, like what teeth whitener to buy and who’s coming over for the Super Bowl.

Here’s the problem with Obama and Haiti that no White House PR can cover over: he’s concerned, busy and on the case, but he isn’t leading. By that I mean orders are not coming down fast enough to adjust the effort to the conditions on the ground.

I listened to an audio tape of president Lyndon Johnson in the last few days. One can only imagine what Johnson would have done. There would be screaming, cussin’ (lots of four letter words, especially anything having to do with bodily functions) and there would be so much action that people would be running into themselves trying to get done what he was ordering up. Some of it might even be helpful. He was a person born to command, even though the office of president was not a perfect fit for take-no-prisoners Texan.

Obama and his team have shown no evidence that they grasp the depth of the problem in Haiti, nor are they reaching down into the Haiti operation to force changes. That’s really a pity. There is so much to be done.

(I will have a list of “to do”s later today. Please come back.

Doug Terry, 1.22.10 9:23 AM

NUMBER ONE on the to do list: stop the killing. Stop turning tragedy into horror. A story from CNN below:

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Haitian police shot and killed a man they suspected of stealing rice in earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince on Thursday, leaving his body on the sidewalk for hours as his family mourned.

The dead man's mother identified him as Gentile Cherie, a 20-year-old carpenter. A companion with him was wounded, and a third man nearby was hit by what he said was a stray bullet.

Witnesses said no one was looting at the time. Josef Josnain, the owner of a shop near the city's airport, said the five bags of rice the men were found with fell from a truck and passers-by picked them up.

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