Oil spill report: Anderson Cooper zingedBy Joel Achenbach
I'm paging through the
Presidential Oil Spill Commission's final report, a massive, Dickensian volume that came out this morning with a thud heard round the capital. This represents a lot of work by some smart folks who spent much of the past year figuring out why the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster happened and what it all means and what we ought to do about oil companies poking holes in the sea floor. To honor the comprehensive and probing nature of this work I'd like to single out a paragraph deep in the book and, you know, make too much of it. I just think it's a nice nugget. (You know the saying: Have blog, will trivialize.)
From Chapter Five, page 139:
"Local resentment became a media theme and then a self-fulfilling prophesy. Even those who privately thought the federal government was doing the best it could under the circumstances could not say so publicly. Coast Guard responders watched Governor Jindal -- and the TV cameras following him -- return to what appeared to be the same spot of oiled marsh day after day to complain about the inadequacy of the federal response, even though only a small amount of marsh was then oiled. When the Coast Guard sought to clean up that piece of affected marsh, Governor Jindal refused to confirm its location. Journalists encouraged state and local officials and residents to display their anger at the federal response, and offered coverage when they did. Anderson Cooper reportedly asked a Parish President to bring an angry, unemployed offshore oil worker on his show. When the Parish President could not promise the worker would be 'angry,' both were disinvited."
In fact, the "Obama's Katrina" meme never quite took flight, perhaps because it was a bad rap. The government wasn't ready for this, but neither was the oil industry, and after a few miserable weeks of serial screw-ups and technological failures, the government finally figured out an oversight role and BP eventually got some traction with the subsea technology.
William Reilly said this morning, "Despite some allegations, this was not Obama's Katrina." Hang on, let me keep reading....
By Joel Achenbach | January 11, 2011; 12:15 PM ET
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2011/01/oil_spill_report_anderson_coop.html Jesus, I remember people here falling for Jindal's BS.
Thank Gawd it is getting called out.
Jindal should get run out of the state for purposely upsetting people and preventing the clean up of the marsh.
F#@king Bastards.