Eric Bohlert of MMFA had a great piece today, comparing today's coverage of Obama in the Gulf spill, to the coverage of President Bush ('41) following the Exxon Valdez spill. I'd like to vent a little more about that.
I’m getting a little bit tired of the criticism being leveled at Obama over this spill. Not because I think he’s been perfect, or because I think he above criticism, but because the criticism has largely been completely lacking in any substance at all. More and more, for both sides, I’m hearing pundits whine about the tone he’s taking, the priority he’s giving it, whether or not he should have called for prayer… basically BULLSHIT. Not one person, that I’ve heard, has come out and said, “He should have done [this]” or “He should be DOING [this].” Well, there’s one: Gov. Bobby Jindal and his damned sand burms. But in that case the Army Corps of Engineers deemed the plan to be an ineffective waste of a scarce resource they’d need to deal with the disaster later on. Now… I had no idea that SAND was so fucking precious, but I’m not about to argue with the Army Corps of Engineers, and Governor Jindal is certainly in no position to. (The day I start asking lawmakers for engineering judgments, I’ll start asking engineers for legal advice!)
And don’t get me wrong: Chris Mathews and Keith Olbermann and both entitled to their opinions and are paid to give them. If nothing else, their comments show that MSNBC is hardly just the liberal version of Fox. Remember: They were willing to criticize the President here, just as they were willing to criticize the Democrats during the health care debate. Despite their unwillingness to adopt the Right’s love of the far Right and blind hatred of Obama and the Democrats, they’ve shown themselves to be more objective politically than Fox has ever done.
But I’m still sick of this “His TONE wasn’t stern enough.” WTF?! Is there some tone of voice he can use to plug the hole? Do really think that him ranting and raving (and threatening?!) like a lunatic would somehow “motivate” BP to get its act together? That’s nonsense! BP is TRYING. It’s not that I like BP, right now I hate them, but there’s no doubt in my mind that THEY’RE DOING ALL THEY CAN at this point! Yes: Obviously they could have done more last month, last year, 5 years ago and 10 years ago. But they’re not sitting on some magic cure all at the moment! They simply do not have the technology to deal with this, because it DOESN’T EXSIST. They’re already running around, Apollo-13 style, trying to make the cap for [this] fit onto the pipe for [that] using [this stuff.] They’re not going to make up for 30 years of the industry’s use of inadequate technology in a week just because Obama found the right tone. And his tone is all they got, because there is nothing more, that I’m aware, that Obama can actually DO here. The coast guard was mobilized on day one. The National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers has been involved from day 1. If there’s something OBAMA is supposed to be doing, WHAT EXACTLY IS IT?! (And if you say “sand burms” I’m going to punch you, and the refer you to an earlier piece I wrote, with a lot of capitalized expletives in it.)
But they HAVE to make this BAD for Obama. The oil lobby cannot afford for this to be “Obama’s 9/11” (for energy policy) so it’s got to be “Obama’s Katrina.” And they’ll find any way to MAKE IT that. Yeah… I’m finding the analogies to be getting a bit moronic as well. You know what this is? It’s Obama’s GULF OIL SPILL. That’s it. It’s not 9/11 (sorry, Mr. president) it’s not Katrina (sorry pundits) and most ironically of all, consider the source, it’s certainly not “Obama’s Iran Hostage Crisis.”
That last one came from Rush Limbaugh, IIRC, presumably because constantly calling it “Obama’s Katrina” keeps reminding people of BUSH’s Katrina. So… better to find a Democrat’s debacle to compare it to. I think it’s telling that they had to go back over THIRTY YEARS to FIND one, but even so they couldn’t have picked a worse example. Because the LAST THING the pro-oil conservatives really want here would be for a well respected newscaster, today’s “Walter Kronkite” (though I’m not really sure who that would even BE) to be counting the days, and reminding people, on a nightly basis, what a huge disaster this is. Not that is would make much of a difference, I think most people have a pretty shrewd idea anyway, but “today marks the umpti-fifth day since the oil started flowing into the Gulf” would NOT help their cause any.
I’ll judge Obama’s "performance" on this based on the legislation that comes out of it. If he can get up to start to leave the path were on, and start to embrace clean energy and sustainable behavior? Then he’ll get top marks from me, regardless of the tone he uses.
The media is focusing on tone and how things play and such because nearly every single one of them is too stupid to do anything else. They lack expertise in anything and everything, including expertise in acquiring information, which is kindergarten easy these days. They are deeply, persistently confused about such basic first-year journalism topics as false balance, followup questions, and whether or not it's good to let their viewers see lies all day long. They perform no better than half your neighbors would if they were allowed to take years out of their life to focus exclusively on this stuff, with a huge staff backing them up.
ReplyDeleteI don't cringe when the media talks trivia, because the media trying to talk about something important, with their shriveled little brains furrowed in futile concentration, would be more cringe-inducing and more damaging. I just wish they'd talk about celebrities or little kitty-cats rather than things that look superficially real to those viewers who don't have time to find out otherwise.
Righthere is more information on oil cleanup than you'll get in an entire day of cable news viewing, just like the single sentence "the United States pays double the rest of the world on health care and gets roughly the same outcome" is more information than you got watching a whole year of TV's health care debate.
I don't know if it's they all have ADD, or what, but very few journalists seem capable of serious journalism. Fact-checking, serious analysis? Please. Perhaps they bought into Rupert Murdoch's words to his minions at The Times of London when they published, as real, the fraudulent "Hitler Diaries:" "F*ck it; we're in the entertainment business." Entertaining is so much easier (and more profitable) than informing.
ReplyDeleteSo, Eddie, a Bosoxer, eh? Good man. My mother was born in Dorchester, and her beloved brother (my namesake) C. (Con) Keefe Hurley, was Ted Williams' lawyer and close friend. He died, at 96, a couple of months before the Sox won the Series. Left me his Sox cuff links. (Which my wife tries to keep me from wearing.)
Great post. There are factions in the country who are pretty openly committed to Obama's failure/destruction, and I'm pretty sure no holds are barred there.
ReplyDeleteWhat is equally disturbing is the rampant superstition and political absurdity some are willing to indulge. I have run into any number of comments along the lines of: "obama relishes the oil spill tragedy because of the hardship, tragedy and damage it is causing to America. There is no provision in his communist agenda that authorizes him to act in the best interest of America. Hopefully, there will be enough sensible voters ready to vote him out or pressure congress to initiate an impeachment action against him..." Is this really the level of sub-cretinism we have sunk to?
Sometimes, all I can do is marvel as how nice the choir sounds. XD
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your comments.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYeah I raad that KOS piece about Boom awhile back. Great stuff. And you're right - it really makes me wonder what they teach these kids in Journalism school. (Rule #1: WHATEVER you do, don't let yourself appear liberal! Don't even risk the ACCUSIATION on liberla bias, regardless of what the FACTS say!) It makes me sick. I agree - let 'em cover kitten's stuck uo in trees.
Con,
Pretty sweet that your Uncle and The Kid were that close. My dad was at the Bucky Dent Game in '78 - I still have the ticket stub in my BBall Card Album. Funny thing - my sister was born that very day. Now... We're ADOPTED, so it's not like he missed the birth or anything... But he often forgets to mention that detail when he tells people abut it! I'm afraid that's as close as I've got! LOL
Peters,
It is unbelieveable the garbage comes up. I'd love to say it's NOT racism, but the alternative is an embarrassing level of stupidity. In the past, I've been highly complimentary about the Conservative posters on MMFA, but between Floyd the last couple weeks and Boulder Hippy this week (who makes Floyd look like Emmanual Kant) I don't know if we're just getting dumber as a nation on our own, or if the RW noise machine is just THAT effective.
Thanks again for all of your comments.
I think in the case of the MSNBC trio of Olbermann, Maddow, and Mathews (especially with the first two) I sense a growing tone of frustration with them over the fact that no one knows how to stop that damn well. I agree that 100% that this whole "Obama's tone" bullshit is getting tiresome.
ReplyDeleteIt was Bill O'Reilly of all people said it best on GMA a couple weeks ago about people's expectations of what they want President Obama to do: "Do they expect Obama to get into a wet suit and dive down there fix the well and start raking the oil out of the sea floor?" (This might not 100% word-for-word exact but it's close enough). It's easy for some people to forget that with all of Obama's victories that he's is just a man and that he's not Superman. He doesn't have superpowers he can't fly down to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and stop the well and then clean up the ocean.
CB,
ReplyDeleteYeah, you know it's gotten bad when Bill O'Rielly is the voice of reason!
Thanks for your comment.
The USA should have immediately appealed to Europe (especially to the germans) for aid. Much time has been wasted. What will happen now is that the area around the gulf will turn into an uninhabited area just as the area around. Chernobyl after the explosion at the nuclear plant. Although the explosion of the oil rig was not nuclear (or was it??)the effect on the region will be similar. There's need for the best brains in the world to see whether something could still be done about it.
ReplyDeleteThere hase been SOME help given by european entities - 13 vessels operating in the area, IIRC. Enough? Nah. Until it's all cleaned up, there's no such thing as 'enough.' As far as 'the best minds' go... You're right, of course, but reagrdless of how many minds we've got working on the problem - and it's really SEVERAL problems at once, I'm afraid that you're also right in your assessment that this will be an ongoing issue for many, many years to come. But if Europe (or anyone else) HAD the magic bullet, I'm sure they'd have suggested it by now. (And go figure that thousands of things HAVE BEEN - mostly nonsense by ameteurs unfortunately.) And that's the real problem: We've got 100's of rigs out there, probably... what? 1000's? world wide? And everyone knows that an accident is inevitable and no knows how to deal with it. Considering hoiw dependant the WORLD (not just the US, although we may be the most) is on oil, I'm just astoudned by that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.
No matter what Obama does the right is going to whine. They whine because he is not tough enough and then they whine because he said he was going to find out who's ass to kick. They whine because government is too big and whine when he doesn't magically make government so big it will plug the leak. I think the idiotic apology from Barton to BP was due to the overwhelming success the GOP has had in criticizing everything Obama does. Obama got a 20 billion dollar escrow promise from BP...gee that must be some sort of socialist, fascist, communist, racist,anti-American, scary Chicago hoodlum/gangster behavior. Barton's apology was a total backfire. I personally hope we(the Libs) continue to pound the living crap out of the right for such idiocy.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, I clicked on Ben Stein for you. That makes one Ann Coulter and one Ben Stein.....yuck.
ReplyDeleteJlarue,
ReplyDeleteI KNOW! He saves the tax-payers and secures 20 BILLION DOLLARS from a FORIEGN FIRM to help people and clean up the mess and THAT'S SOMEHOW A BAD THING! I don't know what's worse, what whiny little bitches these Conservatives / Republicans are or the fact that so many people keep voting for them!!!
If the Democrats had any BALLS they WOULD be HAMMERING the Right for their lack of BRAINS. (Not to mention principles, ideas, fiscal responsibiloity, leaderhip, etc...) It's a sign of how ineffectual they are they they're still percieved as the ineffectual ones!
Stupidity sells, I guess.
Thanks for your comment.