Wilma weakens to Cat 4, media blames Bush, demands investigation

New York (October 21, 2005) – As hurricane Wilma made landfall in Cozumel, Mexico, this morning, a new storm is brewing up between the American news media and the Bush administration. Deeply disappointed that hurricane Wilma has slowed down and weakened to a “mere Category 4 storm, ” a consortium of American media including CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS News, accused the Bush administration of secretly “manipulating the nature” by degrading the hurricane’s intensity “in order to avoid similar embarrassment for the federal government" when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans recently. As late as Wednesday, Wilma became the most intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic, with 882 millibars as the lowest pressure ever recorded. “What did President Bush do between Wednesday and this morning” to make the hurricane weaker, demanded the media an independent investigation to clarify this question. The media, still hurt from the now exposed sloppy and over-hyped reporting of the Katrina hurricane, already blamed Bush for using secret Pentagon technology to divert the Rita hurricane away from Houston in the last minutes to save his fellow Texans. The White House declined the accusation as groundless. “If Rumsfeld had this technology at his disposal, you all know where this hurricane would head now!” said Mr. Scott McClellan, the president’s spokesman said.