BP Gulf Oil Spill

Keith Olbermann had a terrible day on Tuesday.

In baseball terminology, he went 0 for 3. 

After NewsBusters reported two segments from his low-rated "Countdown" program that either included selectively edited transcripts to mislead viewers or material misrepresentations contradicted by numerous sources, the fact-checking website PolitiFact determined another statement made by MSNBC's hottest property was "False".

So egregious were Olbermann's comments that Politifact almost gave them their lowest rating, "Pants on Fire," which readers should recall from their youth always came after "Liar, liar."

Before we get to PolitiFact's analysis, let's witness Olbermann at his worst (video follows with transcript and LOTS of commentary, h/t Lachlan Markay):

Apparently, Tavis Smiley of PBS knows what's best for Gulf residents, even if it would mean widespread unemployment.

Smiley hosted a Wednesday night interview with Rep. Henry Waxman (D) on his show, where the liberal Californian admitted that while alternative energy sources need to be explored and developed, America still needs to drill for oil, albeit safely.

But Smiley wondered aloud how American can move beyond politics and transcend its oil-dependent energy policy. He thought Obama's Oval Office speech was one that "most people, left and right, seem not to like."

"How do you move beyond the politics to make that happen?" Smiley then asked Waxman, even though, as he himself claimed, most of the country was not enamored with Obama's words.

Smiley also brought up the Gulf residents' clamors to keep oil drilling alive there. "I say this respectfully, because I understand how their economy works down there," he said, before asking why Gulf residents are hesitant to "move beyond oil drilling."

While the media have apparently given up -- if they ever seriously attempted -- on holding the Obama administration to account for its handling of the Gulf oil spill cleanup, Republican governors in the Gulf are a different story, particularly Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, a potential 2012 presidential hopeful.

In a short post at Time.com entitled "Battlefield General: Is Bobby Jindal Making Sense?", writer Alex Altman cast doubt on Jindal's handling of the oil spill cleanup while suggesting the conservative governor is hypocritical for his complaints about Obama's handling of the disaster at the federal level:

One narrative the liberal media has strenuously failed to develop is the incredible irony of BP presenting itself as the greenest oil company, the "Beyond Petroleum" folks who recognized they were boiling the planet with oil. In Friday's Wall Street Journal, Mark Mills reviewed a new book, Oil, by Tom Bower:  

But the most interesting figure in Mr. Bower's narrative is not Mr. Putin but BP's Lord Browne, who understood cultural politics better than his peers. In the 1990s, BP launched what was arguably the oil industry's most successful public-relations campaign, for all the good it is doing the company now. The campaign transformed BP into a shining example of a progressive company—one supposedly "Beyond Petroleum."

It is clear from Mr. Bower's account that, while BP remained first and foremost an oil company, Lord Browne drank his own Kool-Aid, basking in encomia from the media and green mavens. He gave lectures at Stanford, appeared on "Charlie Rose," cozied up to Greenpeace and promised to spend $1 billion on solar technology.

Appearing on FNC's "Hannity" on Thursday, Media Research Center President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell discussed the media's left-wing slant on the latest issues during the weekly "Media Mash" segment.

The first topic was NBC's Matt Lauer fretting that Americans would not learn the "proper message" from the oil spill and curb their "appetite for oil." Mr. Bozell pointed out that the media had learned nothing from the ClimateGate scandal and noted their determination to bring an end to offshore oil drilling.

Another topic of discussion was the media's fawning coverage of Elena Kagan, particularly by ABC's Claire Shipman, who spoke of the Supreme Court nominee's "personal charm" Bozell observed that he had never seen such a one-sided profile of someone in his life.

The segment wrapped up with a look at NBC's Chris Matthews and a panel of liberal pundits all describing President Obama's left-wing policies as a "positive" in the November elections. Host Sean Hannity remarked "How about negative?" Bozell joked that the liberal panelists might be working for the RNC because of their encouragement for Obama to continue down such an unpopular road.  

For the full segment, watch the video above or listen to the audio here.

Robert Redford, one of the most popular and succesful actors of our age, has joined with other entertainers, including Sir Paul McCartney and Rosie O'Donnell in encouraging the Obama administration to actively politicize the Gulf crisis and use it to push through on energy policy.

In an interview with ExtraTV, Redford said that Obama should "Grab this moment in history and get a decent energy policy." He also said "Here's a moment in our history where he [Obama] should grab leadership and run with it."

He said that "We blew it in the late seventies," referring to laws like the National Energy Act, National Energy Conservation Policy Act and the Energy Policy and Conservation Act made in the wake of the OPEC embargo and the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster.

CNN's Carol Costello and Jim Acosta revealed their disdain for a federal judge's decision to overturn the Obama administration's 6-month moratorium on offshore drilling when the expert they interviewed on the June 25 "American Morning" made a convincing case against the moratorium.

Tom Bower, an author who has written extensively on the oil industry, tried to explain the devastating economic impact the moratorium would inflict on an already beleaguered industry, but Costello and Acosta were blinded by ideology: "But isn't safety more important than money?" queried Costello. "Because, I mean, these oil companies make massive amounts of money each day."

Bower, author of "Oil, Money, Politics and Power in the 21st Century," drew the ire of Costello and Acosta for calling the Gulf oil spill an "aberration" and noting the oil industry's "phenomenal" overall safety record.
    
"But that's what they say, it is just an aberration, but the BP disaster happened," argued Costello. "Nobody thought that could happen either. So, it's just not logical, is it, that argument?"

Seems the only thing gushing more than the BP oil spill these days is the disaster brewing in Paul McCartney's mouth.  In an exclusive interview with The Sun, McCartney takes a major swipe at global warming realists, er, deniers, by stating (emphasis mine):

"Sadly we need disasters like this to show people. Some people don't believe in climate warming - like those who don't believe there was a Holocaust."

Well that's putting things in perspective.  I'm not sure global warming has been proven to have caused the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion.  Missed that report.  Regardless, it remains unclear how the theory of global warming is in any way similar to the reality of the Holocaust.

McCartney goes on to defend President Obama from any and all criticism concerning the Gulf disaster, culminating with the revelation that he "really love(s) him."

"The media, for like five seconds, those with thrill up and down their legs, they were a little critical of the Anointed One and what was one of the worst speeches in the Oval Office... but as soon as he fired McChrystal and hired Petraeus, they went nuts," Sean Hannity observed last night at the beginning of his recurring "Media Mash" segment with NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell.

The Fox News host then rolled a montage compiled by Media Research Center (MRC) analyst Kyle Drennen which showed the mainstream media hailing Obama as "brilliant" for the personnel move.

After the montage, Bozell noted that the same media that proclaimed Obama sacking McChrystal as "brilliant" were claiming that the president really had no choice but to fire the Afghanistan commander. "If he had no choice, then it really wasn't really altogether all that brilliant," the MRC president observed.

Bozell and Hannity also discussed  the media's double standard in bashing BP CEO Tony Hayward -- who had been relieved of duty for overseeing the cleanup operation -- for yachting over the weekend, while ignoring President Obama's weekend golfing excursion and MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski admitting she was parroting White House talking points to defend the administration's handling of the ongoing crisis.

For the full MP3 audio of the "Media Mash" segment, click here. For video click here for the WMV file or watch the video embed above.

While MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has repeatedly defended President Obama's handling of the oil spill, he used his show on Thursday to trash Republican Joe Barton and focus on getting the Congressman removed from his position on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Scarborough is supposedly the "voice of the right" on the Morning Joe panel, but he conducted a 10-minute, one-sided rant against  Barton and GOP members of Congress.

Scarborough quizzed Representative Eric Cantor, "Why is Joe Barton allowed to keep his job when Joe Barton apologized to a corporation that is destroying my hometown and its economy and destroying the environment across the Gulf Coast?"

The ramifications of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have not even begun to surface. We will be dealing with the ecological damage for years as the prime nesting grounds for shrimp, oysters and countless other varieties of sea life are destroyed by the leak at the bottom of the ocean that nobody seems to be able to deal with.

The economic damage is another entirely different animal that is going to rock the Gulf Coast and head inland with reverberations that will be seriously felt around the whole country.

The Obama administration is completely lost on how to deal with the spill and the president seems helpless except to appoint commissions and place blame anywhere except 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I know that an oil leak at this depth has never had to be dealt with before and is a seriously difficult thing to fix, but somewhere on this earth, somebody knows how to fix it and it's high time to find him or her.

On the June 24 "American Morning," CNN's Carol Costello trumpeted a "revitalized" environmental movement that is hoping the Gulf oil spill will "change the way we feel about oil" and is aggressively lobbying Congress to pass radical climate change legislation.

Previewing the "Gut Check" segment, Costello gleefully teased, "Coming up next, environmentalists are revitalized and it's over the Gulf oil spill. Could this disaster be what we need in this country to change the way we feel about oil?"

In lockstep with the Left's environmental agenda, the fill-in anchor pondered whether the Gulf oil spill would crystallize support for a climate bill or would "it be back to business as usual?" Costello articulated the same phrase environmental groups frequently employ to manufacture a false sense of urgency around their liberal initiatives.

Interviewing David Rauschkolb, founder of Hands Across the Sand, a liberal group opposed to offshore drilling, Costello praised the forerunner to Rauschkolb's new group – Earth Day – for "strengthening the Clean Air Act and helping President Nixon create the Environmental Protection Agency." Costello did not reach out to conservative critics who argue that draconian environmental regulations stymie economic growth and breed unemployment.

As Interior Secretary Ken Salazar prepares a new moratorium on offshore oil drilling after the last one was shot down by a federal judge Wednesday, lost on the media seems to be Salazar's dishonesty in promoting the policy thus far. Very few have reported that he misrepresented the position of a team of experts designed to look into the costs and benefits of the moratorium.

In reality, the seven-member panel, recommended by the National Academy of Engineering, said Salazar's proposed moratorium would be "punishing the innocent." The policy "will not measurably reduce risk further," the panel explained, "and it will have a lasting impact on the nation's economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill."

Despite the panel's clear opposition to the policy, Salazar implied that they supported the moratorium. Salazar was forced to apologize after the panel publicly rebuked the Secretary's implications. "The Secretary should be free to recommend whatever he thinks is correct," said one member of the panel, "but he should not be free to use our names to justify his political decisions."

Unlike Katie Couric on Monday night, on Wednesday evening NBC's Brian Williams didn't hide the bad news for President Obama in the network's latest poll, but Williams and Savannah Guthrie sure seemed to lament the public mood's swing against Obama as Williams attributed it to how Obama “had to touch” the gulf oil leak, “he had to own it and now he's getting tagged with how he's reacting to it.” As if Obama had nothing to do with it, Guthrie agreed he's “had a barrage of bad headlines on some of these very issues of leadership, handling a crisis...”

“If you're the White House looking at these numbers we're about to debut tonight, there isn't much here that's encouraging right now,” Williams warned of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey findings. Guthrie agreed: “There's not a lot of good news in this poll for the White House. Gushing oil, persistent unemployment the real problem.”

Online, MSNBC.com's headline also ascribed Obama's troubles to the gulf: “Spill drags the President's rating down.” The subhead, over the posting by NBC News Deputy Political director Mark Murray, emphasized a bright spot in areas Guthrie noted declines : “A silver lining for Obama is that his personal scores are still strong.”

Another leg tingle is on the way for MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews. Wednesday on "Andrea Mitchell Reports," Chris Matthews asserted that the President's image had been tainted because "BP has been the front institution, not the United States government, in this whole horror down in the gulf."

Yet, the White House no longer needs to worry, because to Matthews, the releasing of General McChrystal benefits the President's image of handling the oil spill by creating a "chance for him and somewhat in a way or somewhat in a personnel manner to insist on his role as Commander in Chief."

CNN on Tuesday actually noticed the absurdity of folks bashing BP CEO Tony Hayward for yachting on the same day President Obama was golfing.

National correspondent Jeanne Moos surprisingly began her "American Morning" piece, "It's the yachting versus golf smack down, round one."

After showing average Americans complaining about Hayward's R&R, Moos quipped, "But before you could spell BP CEO, President Obama's golfing came under attack."

Children were shown expressing their displeasure with the Golfer in Chief, "In the two hours it takes to golf or to go yachting another one to 10,000 gallons of oil can leak out."

This led Moos to marvelously conclude, "Just plug the darn hole Mr. President" (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t Hot Air's Ed Morrissey): 

When Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in 2005, numerous media members blamed racism for President Bush's supposedly poor response to the disaster.

According to LexisNexis, there were almost 1,000 reports in the nine weeks following the storm's passage through the Gulf of Mexico that tied racism to the government's post-hurricane strategy.

Five years later, as oil slams the same region and polls show the public actually more unhappy with the response to this crisis than they were after Katrina hit, no such nefarious connection is being espoused.

Why?

Consider the media firestorm the following remark by rapper Kanye West set off just a few days after the hurricane hit New Orleans (video follows with transcript and commentary):

All three network news shows on Tuesday skipped a report that eight of 15 experts consulted by the Obama administration opposed the government's plan to halt deepwater oil drilling for six months. Only Special Report With Bret Baier covered the story.

FNC reporter James Rosen noted a federal judge's decision to overturn the plan: "The judge also rebuked the Obama administration for filing a quote 'misleading misrepresentation' in the case by suggesting an expert panel supported the moratorium when a majority of its members do not."

ABC's World News, CBS's Evening News and NBC's Nightly News (as well as Good Morning America, Early Show and Today) all highlighted the ruling, but none of them mentioned the opposition from a majority of the panel.

ABC, CBS and NBC all led Tuesday night with multiple stories on the “firestorm” over disrespectful coments by General Stanley McChrystal and his aides about President Obama and other administration officials, but ABC's Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos particularly despaired over the position in which McChrystal has put Obama.

Sawyer fretted that Obama “now faces a mind-boggling choice,” before Stephanopoulos kvetched “the President has really been put in a real political box” and “a very painful political position,” forcing him to choose between “looking thin-skinned and petulant” or “looking weak.”

CBS's Katie Couric didn't go that far, but she was disturbed by the burden on Obama: “This controversy is about the last thing the President needed on his plate as he deals with two wars overseas and another against an invasion of oil off the gulf coast.”

Actor Robert Redford lambasted America's energy plan that he claimed led to the Gulf disaster, laying the responsibility at the feet of former Vice President Cheney. Appearing Monday night on "Anderson Cooper 360," Redford blamed the Gulf oil spill not only on BP, but also because of the "failed" energy policy that led to this disaster.

'There's a lot being said about BP, and there's a lot of truth that's finally bubbling up to the surface," Redford acknowledged. "But what I'm more interested in is – is looking at it from a historical point of view and trying to connect some dots about how we got here."

"Look, I think one of the reasons we're in this problem is because we have not only a failed energy policy, but we have an energy policy – because of the way it was designed, and who it was designed by, Cheney – it's sick and it's dangerous."

Editor's Note: The following originally appeared at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood.

Appearing on CNN with Anderson Cooper, film director Spike Lee implored President Obama to infuse his handling of the Gulf oil spill with more emotion. Demonstrating the astute analysis we have come to expect from the director, Lee implored Obama to “one time, go off.”

Perhaps he is of the same mind as Bill Maher, that the authentic black man is one who is always armed and resorts to violence and loud-talking when things do not go his way. (Note to self: On the way home from the liquor store, I must pick up my Glock from the gun shop.)

Both Lee and Maher seem to share the opinion of a great many progressives that emotion is the same as leadership and that problems are most easily solved by decree. It is no mistake that following criticism by Lee and others, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was declaring to the media that he had “seen rage from him [President Obama].” Apparently, when Obama gets angry, he clinches his jaw.

CNN correspondent Jeanne Moos has a penchant for quirky, off-beat reporting, but what happens when the eccentric newswoman gives a more accurate picture of important events than the serious journalists?

While media outlets relentlessly denounced BP CEO Tony Hayward for taking Saturday off to participate in a yacht race, they mostly glossed over or completely ignored President Barack Obama's Saturday golf outing with Vice President Joe Biden.

It was left to CNN's resident humorist to connect the dots.

"It's the yachting versus golf smack down, round one," declared Moos. "BP's CEO gets pummeled for taking a day off to watch his yacht race...CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller says already President Obama has played 39 rounds of golf, compared to the 24 George Bush played his entire presidency."

The BP oil spill - millions of gallons of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, coastal businesses from Houston to Tampa shuttered, the potential for higher energy costs across the country and untold ecological damage. But according to Mother Jones magazine's David Corn, there is a silver-lining in all of this - that is, if you're a Democrat. 

MSNBC's June 21 "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" deviated from its usual efforts to blame the previous administration for the oil spill and instead gave thanks that the spill led to Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, apologizing to BP CEO Tony Hayward in a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.

"I think it's every single Democrat in America - they're saying, ‘Joe Barton, you go for it,'" Corn said. "You keep that ranking member position. Don't - you know, stick to your guns. I mean, after all, I mean, you made this point, I've written about this, others have made this point - It wasn't a gaffe. Joe Barton said what he believed."

Yesterday, Joe Scarborough and Jack Welch ribbed Mika Brzezinski for her reading of White House talking points on the oil spill.  But after bloggers including this one reported Mika's admission that she was "working with the White House" on the matter, Scarborough has this morning gone all Sir Galahad.  

The Morning Joe host said he wasn't going to "call them names," but then proceeded to mockingly imitate bloggers fulminating through their Cheetos.

Here was the exchange of yesterday:

Katie Couric opened Monday's CBS Evening News by touting how “in a CBS News/New York Times poll out tonight, 43 percent of Americans approve of President Obama's handling of the spill. Only 13 percent approve of BP's efforts.” She offered no further details, such as how 47 percent disapprove of Obama's performance, and only those checking CBSNews.com would realize the selectivity in the assessment of Obama she chose to highlight.

“Poll: Most Say Obama Lacks Clear Plans on the Oil Spill, Energy or Jobs” read the headline over a “Political Hotsheet” posting, which Brian Montopoli led:

Most Americans do not believe President Obama has a clear plan to deal with the oil spill in the Gulf, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. Just 32 percent say Mr. Obama has a clear plan to deal with the oil leak, while 59 percent (including 64 percent of Gulf coast residents) say he does not.

Deeper in his post, Montopoli noted additional negative evaluations for Obama: “A majority of Americans -- 61 percent -- say the President's response to the oil spill was too slow. Just 31 percent say they have 'a lot' of confidence in his ability to handle a crisis, though a majority has at least some confidence that he can do so.”

Usually when you see something on the Center for American Progress' Think Progress blog, you ignore it (or at best take it with a grain of salt) because you know its fundamental objective is to score some inane point against conservatives or the Republican Party.

But a June 21 post by Tanya Somanader, categorized as "Radical Right-Wing Agenda" was too hard to let go. In her post, "Fact Checking Sarah Palin: Joe Barton Reflects The Philosophy Of Over 115 Republicans" Somanader used guilt by association to back up White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's claim that the ill-advised remarks of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, were indicative the GOP's "larger philosophy."

Former Republican vice-presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin attacked Emanuel for the claim he made on the June 20 broadcast of ABC's "This Week" on her Twitter feed:

RahmEmanuel= as shallow/narrowminded/political/irresponsible as they come,to falsely claim Barton's BP comment is "GOP philosophy"Rahm,u lie

On the June 20th edition of Sunday Morning, CBS reporter Richard Schlesinger conducted a glowing interview with pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, lauding him as someone who speaks with "moral authority" and who has "become an expert assessor of the value of life itself."

Feinberg, who will now be in charge of distributing the $20 billion BP has pledged for the oil spill, previously worked with President Obama to control salaries and bonuses of Wall Street CEOs. Schlesinger could barely contain his disgust for the executives.

He scolded, "How do you avoid looking at these guys on the other side of the table and say, You're just a bunch of greedy so-and-sos?"

Managing Editor's Note: I saw this earlier today on RedState and asked the artist for permission to republish here. You can check out more of Toby Dials's work at TobyToons.com and follow him on Twitter here.

All three morning shows on Monday railed against BP CEO Tony Hayward for attending a yachting race in England on Saturday, but they found no such anger for Barack Obama's golf outing on the same day, ignoring the story. The pattern was nearly identical on Sunday, with only Good Morning America briefly mentioning the President's recreational activities.

On Monday's Early Show, Katie Couric appeared and derided, "But that image of Tony Hayward participating in that yacht race over the weekend probably hurt his image even more, as if that's possible." Good Morning America's Sharyn Alfonsi indignantly reported, "...Tony Hayward goes sailing, but residents weren't the only ones wondering what was he thinking?"

The morning shows even repeated the White House's assaults on Hayward's yachting trip, hypocritically ignoring Obama's golfing. On the June 20 Sunday Morning (CBS's weekend equivalent of the Early Show), host Charles Osgood parroted, "White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel labeled Hayward's outing another PR gaffe."