Oh Chicken Little! The sky is falling, the sky is falling! The land of the used-to-be-free and the home of the cowards. I concur with the English media.

Off subject for just a minute. We had some rain clouds pass through the Twin Cities earlier this year and all local media interupted programming so we could find out if it was raining at Target Field, and then listen to some local yokel tell us what the sky looked like from south Minneapolis, and this nonsense went on for 3 hours. Come on fella’s, take the skirts off, put on a pair of pants, and start acting like a man.

Back to Irene. It was so pathetic, nonstop coverage of a storm no worse than I’ve experienced on Lake Superior. I’ve seen much worse on the big lake than Irene mustered. But the afraid-of-their-own-shadow politicans and sorry excuse for media were hyping this thing like Katrina was a small storm. It was truly pathetic to watch. What a bunch of cowards. Embarrassing to say the least.

For the television reporter, clad in his red cagoule emblazoned with the CNN logo, it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.

“We are in, right, now…the right eye wall, no doubt about that…there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”

Stumbling and apparently buffeted by ferocious gusts, he took shelter next to a building. “This is our protection from the wind,” he explained. “It’s been truly remarkable to watch the power of the ocean here.”

The surf may have told a story but so too did the sight behind the reporter of people chatting and ambling along the sea front and just goofing around. There was a man in a t-shirt, a woman waving her arms and then walking backwards. Then someone on a bicycle glided past.

Across the screen, the “Breaking News: Irene Batters Long Island” caption was replaced by stern advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): “Stay inside, stay safe.”

The images summed up Hurricane Irene – the media and the United States federal government trying to live up to their own doom-laden warnings and predictions while a sizeable number of ordinary Americans just carried on as normal and even made gentle fun of all the fuss.

There was almost palpable disappointment among the TV big guns rolled out for the occasion when Irene was downgraded to a mere ‘tropical storm”. In New York city, CNN’s silver-haired Anderson Cooper, more usually seen in a tight t-shirt in a famine or war zone, was clad in what one wag dubbed “disaster casual”.

He looked crestfallen and fell briefly silent when a weatherwoman told him that the rain was not going to get any worse. “Wow, because this isn’t so bad,” he said. “It’s an annoying rain but it isn’t even a sideways rain.”

Next came the political B.S. from the phony politicians, including one from New Jersey whom I really like. Damage Control is not immune from either party, but it’s still Damage Control and I don’t like it because it’s disinenuous.

Then came the press conferences from the politicians, with Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey insisting that his evacuation of the Jersey Shore was “a pre-emptive measure that I am confident saved lives” and there could still be damage worth “tens of billions” of dollars.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief, declared that there was “a ways to go with Irene” but “with the evacuations and other precautions taken we have dramatically decreased the risk to life”. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York seemed thoroughly delighted with himself, as if he personally had calmed the waters and stifled the winds.

The truth is that the dire warning beforehand suited both politicians and journalists. Just as with the minor earthquake that shook the east coast last week causing no loss of life and virtually no damage, Irene became a huge story because it was where the media lived.

We haven’t even begun to mention “Meddlin’ Mike,” the PC coward of NYC.

And of course the White House had to get in to the act. After all, you can’t let a half-assed non-crisis event go to waste! “Obama is in charge!” I have to admit, I laughed out loud when I saw that headline.

There were photographs of President Barack Obama touring disaster centres and footage of him asking sombre, pertinent questions. With his poll ratings plummeting, Obama needed to project an aura of seriousness and command. He was all too aware that the political fortunes of his predecessor George W Bush never recovered after the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005.

The press mostly reported the message the White House had carefully crafted: “Obama takes charge” read the headline of one wire service story.

Let’s face it, if there wasn’t an election around the corner with Obama’s poll numbers dropping in to the 30′s, there’s no way in hell he would have “taken charge.” Like I said many times before. With Obama, it’s all about politics.

Toby Harnden’s column in The Telegraph told you the truth about this non-event called Irene. Pointing out everything from the media to the politicians to the actual storm itself. Great piece. And it comes from the eyes of someone that is not vested in ether political party or this country. Just the truth with no spin.