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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow continued her excellent reporting on the BP oil disaster last night, explaining the scope of the "environmental mega-disaster" and how inadequate BP’s and the nation’s response has been. She’s following Murrow and Cronkite, Moyers and Goodman, doing what journalists are supposed to do. Here’s her closing comment:
President Obama returns to this coast tomorrow for his third visit since the BP oil disaster began, my guess is that he will feel concern for the welfare of this region. He will feel frustration at the failure to keep oil off these shores. He will feel pressure as an executive, as a leader, as a politician to do something more about this crisis.
But I’m also pretty sure that President Obama will feel disgusted. Because what he will encounter when he gets out into this oil is disgusting.
The oil now coating the wildlife and the beaches of this beautiful coast stinks; it STINKS; it smells bad, it is slimy, it is sticky, it is toxic, even if Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour wants to say that it’s not. It is irredeemably foul, and it is everywhere.
And when you come upon it in person, having only seen it on television, at least if you are me, you are overwhelmed by the post-apocalyptic sensory experience of a man made disaster irretrievably destroying part of our country.
You are disgusted that BP put this ocean and this coast and these communities inland in jeopardy. Disgusted at the billions of dollars of quarterly profits that lined the oil industry’s pockets and deepened their wells and didn’t do a thing to prevent this.
You are disgusted that the government let BP and the rest of the industry do it. Disgusted that American leaders screamed "drill baby drill" without considering the consequences, all in the name of whoring themselves for a few votes during the few months that gasoline prices were rising.
Disgusted that the booms off this coast meant to protect it mostly aren’t doing anything; disgusted that those booms remain largely unmanned; disgusted that there isn’t much more to do, except maybe put more people here to try to make this totally inadequate technology try to work less horribly than it does.
This is not hurricane Katrina; this isn’t another Katrina. This isn’t another anything. This is a whole new thing, happening to us. This is America’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. We all own it forever.
And right here, right here in Grand Isle and all along the Gulf coast, there are only three things that matter: stopping the oil from flowing, protecting the coast and the ocean from the millions of gallons of oil that have already spilled, and making sure that this never ever happens again.
You can diagnose whether we have a functioning media in this country by whether or not the country understands that this is a vile environmental mega-disaster.
You can diagnose whether we have a functioning political system in this country by whether or not the results of this mega-disaster is change.
Big Oil has been too rich to care about what it was putting us all at risk for. And we’ve been too cowardly to change direction and break free from them.
If that changes because of our national disgust at this disaster, then America’s political system in 2010 works. If it doesn’t change, then it doesn’t work.
Your move, Mr. President, Democrats, Congress, America.
John Chandley
More:
Michael Whitney, BP Claims Tides Will Help Remove Oil from Marshes
120 Comments
Good on her. I understand she’s beating Larry “formaldehyde keeps him looking lifelike.” King in the ratings, too.
go Rachel
Walter Cronkite.
Rachel came dangerously close to speaking the unspeakable…to actually criticizing the Administration’s response to the BP spill. Her description of that response…what she was seeing with her own eyes, spoke volumes.
Her demeanor really said it all.
Good on ya, Rachel.
Now batten the hatches for the Rachel bashers.
I think using that quote we can run a Green Candidate against Haley even if the Dems won’t. Forget the Tea Baggers we should back the Greens next election I’m thinking they can pick up a few Southern States.
Especially if Obama does not get a jobs bill passed that creates jobs for all the unemployed fishermen and tourist workers.
How are the people of Florida reacting to the oil spill? How are the politicians reacting?
Good commentary on her part.
Rachel Maddow Nominated for Television Critics Award
How could anyone bash her for this excellent coverage and commentary?
Yay for Rachel, telling it like it is.
Thank you for highlighting these comments and bringing Rachel onto FDL.
I have not been a great Maddow fan because she has seemed to be wasting her intellect on polemics. But observing the surgical dissection of Rand Paul and now this.I am hopeful for her becoming an important voice for our side.
Right now she is the only one with a public voice who is developing the language helping the people to get our minds around the magnitude of this cataclysm. She certainly has the intellect and is beginning to show the talent.
There are some who will bash Rachel no matter what. Some expect her to be the Noam Chomsky of corporate teebee I guess.
Knew that. I just wanted to see it in print here. Thanks for obliging.
Because the oil companies are afraid of growing public resentment? But agreed logically they have no case.
We don’t own it it owns us and every thing about our past way of life.
Kill the well before the well kills us, BP wants to capture rather the kill it.
Oops. thanks.
Thanks to you too. This needs spelled out. And, we are.
Lets see Haley eat some Mississippi fresh catch from the gulf Sushi at every meal for a year just to prove us wrong.
She’s got Walter Cronkite eyes. (Or, at least the glasses.) *g* Love you, Rachel.
I was watching the Letterman monologue the other night and he was joking about the oil spill, BP, and the audience was actually laughing at the jokes.
It was sickening to listen to so I quickly turned it off.
How do we as a people laugh at what is happening in the Gulf, to the people of the region who are, and will continue to suffer from this nightmare.
Go Rachel! She really shows an empathy with what is happening and it is not phony.
So if the bashers begin, lets band together to have her back.
I still maintain the Gulf coast be declared a national monument where visitors from around the world can come and visit, donning Hazmat suits, to witness for themselves the consequences of unregulated free market corporate capitalism.
I have many thoughts…
Why can’t we see this disaster as the reason to get off oil and into solar? Whatever it would cost, developing solar energy as our mainstay would be cheaper than a spill or spills that ruin(s) the Gulf…
How can the GOP project their perpetual demands for less regulation and more profit into the BP disaster is Obama’s fault?
I think that the only way to teach big business a lesson here is to short BP’s stock into the single digits and arrest and prosecute all their executives and board members for gross negligence.
Didn’t that British Minister feed his kids Mad Cow steak on TV just to prove British beef was safe? I want to see Haley on tv put his mouth on an oil covered fish.
Having Haley feed his kids that would be child abuse.
The U.S. is nothing but one big joke. The audience doesn’t realize it but they are the but of that joke. Nothing is sacred in the U.S., the workers, the environment or life itself with the exception of money.
They couldn’t kill that well if they wanted to.
She did, in effect, criticize the Administration’s response. And I hope they got the message.
One of her primary points was that the response has been inadequate. Politically, the quality of ALL aspects of the response is now on the Administration. Yes, BP must be made to pay. But ANY further unnecessary suffering by the folks down there is on the Administration.
I hope she is being careful in that toxic environment.
If we can get even estimated numbers of the oil spill’s cost lost fishing tourist jobs, higher food costs, expected home bankruptcies as fishermen, and tourist industry workers lose their homes, expected bank losses from the resale value of beach front homes, airline losses as nobody goes to spring break on the gulf coast all for the next 10, 20, 30? years and add that onto the cost of oil.
Well I’m sure solar, Wind and hydropower all look a lot cheaper. Hybrid and Electric cars look allot cheaper.
But first we need some numbers any Left economists got estimates yet?
She’s point blank criticized the administration. Several times. And not just about the BP fiasco.
Obama scheduled to visit the Gulf again today. Methinks his dress will be a bit more casual, somewhat on the order of “casual Friday.” Just guessin…
The worst response from the WH (IMO) is allowing BP to not only run the show, but letting them keep cameras and scientists out.
Who the heck is this Hayward person to tell Americans where we can and cannot go in our country. People need the pictures of this disaster to understand the magnitude of it. I say that the WH needs to be pushed to allow reporters, cameras, and whatever else in to tell the story. And Hayward can go back to England and “get his life back.”
Why don’t we just go with a nice even number, say, one trillion dollars? And make folks prove that it won’t be one trillion dollars.
David Dayen has a fresh cross-post up: The Grand Bargain: Volcker Rule-For-Trading-Desk Deal Discussed
I have not been a great Maddow fan because she has seemed to be wasting her intellect on polemics.
I hear this thing all the time, about Krugman too. Maddow are two of the very few people in the major media who do a good job, and you wish they would do something else.
I do not and never will understand people like you. You are destructive morons who have no idea how politics works. You have no respect for anyone who is actually doing the necessary political work, because you are just too fine to muddy your lovely hands, or even to respect someone who does muddy their hands.
There are a lot of people like you in the Democratic party and you should all just go somewhere else, hell as far as I’m concerned, and quit stinking up the place with your prissy snobbery.
No, I didn’t lose your temper. I run into people like you again and again, and my reaction is constant. *****
Please do not insult other commenters. And urging someone’s death is not acceptable here, ever. SC
I loved it when she brought up about the dude on the pres’s commission to look into this mess that he is on the board of an oil company linked to BP. How nice that Obama put him on that…what else can we expect of the change we can believe it.
Rachel has been doing an excellent job the last couple of nights down in the marshes, swamps and bayous. First with the Park Ranger at Jean Lafitte and then last night with the Tulane professor. That’s what President Obama needs to be doing!
Also, love that the Tulane prof was wearing a TULANE t-shirt! As a proud alum (Arch ’96) I loved the ‘shameless’ plug…
Covers just about everything. I would only add that it seems all politicians care about is $$$ for the next election to rake in the perks. There is no governing, only politics.
I cannot even stomach watching the news. This story literally paralyzes me. That is how disgusted I am. The irresponsibility, the devaluing of life goes on and on.
Because its too low a number?
http://www.cefa.fsu.edu/florida_tourism03.pdf
Alaska still has oil just under the sand 20 years later no swimming no tourists for at least 20 years in Florida and thats just one state never mind the loss of commercial fishing.
$51,127.6 billion times 20 years is more than a trillion. Then add in the numbers from the other states.
It’ll be a lot more than that before this thing is done because no amount of money can measure the death of the Gulf of Mexico.
Are you Irish? :)
There you go.
I agree wholeheartedly and have been blogging similar suggestions on different blogs since the very first day this happened.
Obama, like his predecessor Bush, is completely WASTING this opportunity to push the country into alternative fuels, energy, better/improved urban and rural transportation systems, etc, at the least. Of course, I would also love to see this disaster used as means to end the wars because of the insane amounts of fossil fuels used to “run” those wars.
But as Bush wasted his opportunity brought by the horror of 9/11 to reach out both domestically and internationally to create better understanding, improved dialogues, etc – ORahma sits on his thumbs mouthing platitudes about making BP “pay,” AS IF the solution to our every problem are the corporations and the magical mythical private sector “marketplace.” It makes me want to scream in frustation. Rahmbama ran on promises to improve green technologies and alternatives; here is a golden opportunity to push forward a very NEEDED agenda; and what do we have: crickets. Effen crickets.
The nation is ready to hear something like this, but clearly our so-called “Democratic” POTUS is so in bed with the corporations that we’re just going to get Bush III. Really discouraging.
RM has been great this week, and I thank her for her excellent coverage of this EPIC corporate FAILURE on all levels.
Finally: I thought the USA (but with help from many other nations, of course) did a fairly good job at assisting Haiti after the earthquake, and kudos for that humanitarian effort. It simply GAULS me to watch ORahma twiddle his frackin thumbs while BP is clearly engaging in criminal negligence and is doing as a crap-rotten job at the laughingly called “clean up” effort. Sheesh.
A testimony to the complete waste of time that Obama is… totally inept, incompetent and in the payola of the corporations.
Oh, one more thing and I’m sure you’ve all pointed this out too…comparing this to Katrina is just stupid. this is NOT a natural disaster. It’s man-made. And it’s criminal.
My biggest fear is that BHO will take the same approach to this as he did with HCR and FinReg.
Pathetic diatribe!
I don’t know why I’m so fracking surprised at Obama…I remember Senator Obama and Senator Clinton eying each other before every key vote, as in a game of political chicken. And being disappointed every time.
Seriously! It’s so emblematic of the abject FAIL that Obama is. Really disgusted beyond belief. It’s clear that BP, as a corporation, doesn’t have the skills or will to engage in a really good clean-up effort. I guess BP needs to fix the oil well; so be it.
But why US citizens are at the beck and call of BP for the clean really GAULS me, and makes me no end of pissed off at Obama and his poor choices for cabinet members, etc. UGH. Really pathetic.
After having attempted unsuccessfully to shame Dems into crafting a better HCR package I was disappointed when she became yet another cheerleader for it’s passage. I confess I tuned her out from that point onward.
She is doing excellent work on this, however. Hopefully she will inspire some other TV personalities to begin earning their paychecks.
Isn’t he already? What’s different now? He’s sitting on his hands and whistling Dixie waiting for the corporate calvaray to ride in on their chargers and save his butt…
I am thrilled with Maddow’s work on the spill, getting right into the heart of it. Finally, a real journalist in America!!!
Have you guys discussed the supertanker and I missed it? It feels like there is sooo much more we could be doing for clean up and preventative measures as well. We need to take the clean up away from BP (they only care about covering up, not cleaning up) and do it ourselves and send BP the bill. Allowing BP to handle clean up is insane.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/gulf-oil-spill-supertankers-051310
I agree re RM. I tuned her during HCR, where I felt that she and KO did a crummy job being corporate rah-rahs for the killing of anything decent in that legislation and shaking the pom-poms at how “great” it was when that crappy piece of junk legislation was passed.
However, RM has more than redeemed herself with this effort, and KO is doing a better job on this, too. I am glad that they are there doing what they’re doing. KO was showing photos of the oil-gunked wildlife that BP has been so keen to keep off the airwaves. While not as spectacular of a job as what RM is doing, it is still very helpful. Kudos to both, but esp to RM.
What a fine example of polemics.
I couldn’t agree more, and that’s what I’ve been blogging about and sending emails to congress about since day one.
It’s shameful and ridiculous and pathetic to leave the clean-up in the hands of BP, who are CLEARLY doing a crap-rotten job; could care less; and are only doing their damndest to keep photographers away.
Our nation has better resources to handle this much more effectively, and we can just send BP the bill… and make them PAY.
Where is our next Progressive candidate to counter this criminal Corporatist president?
8|29 in New Orleans was NOT a natural disaster either. Hurricane Katrina along the Mississippi Gulf Coast was a natural disaster. 8|29 was a failure of government (Army Corps of Engineers Hurricane Protection System). Do not use Katrina Shorthand in regards to what happened in New Orleans in 2005.
Indeed. The irony meter spontaneously combusted.
“President Obama returns to this coast tomorrow for his third visit since the BP oil disaster began, my guess is that he will feel concern for the welfare of this region. He will feel frustration at the failure to keep oil off these shores. He will feel pressure as an executive, as a leader, as a politician to do something more about this crisis.
But I’m also pretty sure that President Obama will feel disgusted. Because what he will encounter when he gets out into this oil is disgusting. ”
She’s pre propagandizing us. What a spin job.
“I am thrilled with Maddow’s work on the spill, getting right into the heart of it. Finally, a real journalist in America!!!”
She has to. Otherwise she’d have to report on the Israeli killings. Can’t do that.
Thats just tourist numbers never mind fishing, never mind bank losses as fishing and tourist workers leave never mind all the million dollar beach front homes owners will walk away from because oil splattered beaches make their homes worthless.
We need real economists giving us estimates.
Krugman’s a hack, man, get as pissed off as you like it’s nothing to me.
Huh?
Any fool can shout “I hate Republicans”
Flash! There is more to politics than rounding up gangs to shout hate. And there is more to human strivings than that.
My point is Rachel has the intellect and language to describe and inform as to what the issues and their implications are. That is good journalism. More gets done when we know what we are shouting about.
Thanks to scarecrow for pointing out Rachel’s good work
Have a good day.
Obama is caught flatfooted because he has in my view never had any intention to make changes in our use of energy. Just keep drilling.
One can hope his mind will change with this experience as it is with many of us.
I only wish I knew the answer. It’s been discussed a lot around these parts without much of an answer. Any suggestions are welcome.
We can only hope that he wakes up and starts keeping some of the promises that he made (I won’t hold my breath). I feel compelled to speak out (yell out?) about this bc I think it is so important. I know not to believe most campaign promises, but this is one area that is too important to ignore. Now is the time to demand that Obama do what he promised for the betterment of our nation (and not just to line his pockets).
This was the sentence from JE’s comment that got to me, with a presumption that everyone here identifies with the Democratic Party.
Sorry John, I’d rather be a liberal than a Dem cheerleader.
Good point. And why I have come to enjoy and rely on FDL and folks like you.
Well, what you accused her of was never true. And what you were doing was zeroing in on one of the two or three sort of OK people in the major media and deciding that they weren’t good enough for you. “SHout hate”. What a moron you are. When did she ever do that? What are you, a Hare Krishna or something?
You still seem totally pleased with yourself, and there’s nothing I can do about that, but what a waste of air.
Atleast Obama will use this disaster to push for “green energy ” right ?
Like nuclear and natural gas /snark .
I’m not a Dem cheerleader either. I’ve more or less given up on them, I don’t see any superior alternative, either.
Talkingstick was talking like one of the kinds of Democrat I especially can’t stand: the prissy, above-the-battle, goody-goody academic. I certainly wasn’t demanding that he become a Dem cheerleader.
Rachel could be a bit more aggressive in every way as far as I’m concerned, and farther left too.
One reason, possibly the main reason, why liberal and progressive Democrats (and still more, anyone to their left) have so little success and so much difficulty in getting our views accross is that the major media are dominated by the center-right and right. The exceptions have gone from the fingers of one hand to the second hand by now: Krugman, Maddow, Olbermann, Schultz, Moyer…. and someone else. You have a few liberals at the Post and the Times, but they’re mostly feeble and treacherous, people like Dowd.
We should be grateful for whatever we can get, because we need it so badly. But a frequent liberal / Democratic response is “Eeeeeeuw! I don’t like that!” It was the same way withAir America, people gloated about its problems without even thinking that they filled a need and that they would be replaced by nothing at all.
Good point! :^) But at least her corporate masters are allowing her some freedom in and funding to report on the Gulf. And in that, she is doing a great job.
I am not grateful to well paid propagandists because they’re not as bad as the others (Krugman though truly is a craven little hack). I don’t need them at all, and neither does anyone else. Whatever ‘side’ they’re on, they’re still corporate.
I could have been a bit hyperbolic and should have just left it at not using her intellect to its maximum capacity for informing and framing our liberal principles and values.
.
Yes, all the blathering by conservatives during the past 40 years about a mythical liberal media was analogous to working the refs and it achieved exactly what they hoped. Now the media heads are so terrified they will be accused of liberal bias that even the most ludicrous right wing talking points are discussed as if they were valid.
Rachel like many of us are disgusted and frustrated. Frustrated because nothing seems to change. Nothing is getting done. Nothing. No real money for mass transit. No real money for alternative energy. No changes in our financial system that has gobbled up almost half of our GDP. No jobs. In other words, no challenges to crony capitalism and banksterism.
I would love to see the connecting of dots between disasters and the bankers still making money on the disasters. Bankers, as we speak, continue to bet on defaults of home owners and whole communities. They manipulate the prices of commodities. The Vampire Squid feeds on the great Oil Monster smothering the Gulf and Eastern seaboard.
And even if the president did show some disgust, so what? He and the crony congress need to DO something. Fine BP every day. Fire Salazar and hire somebody who actually cares about re-regulating these monsters. Fix the levees in New Orleans. I’m tired of the outrage which include our corporate main stream press. It’s thin gruel and the pablum of propaganda.
John Emerson is most likely a poster named Fred from think progress . The only point to his posts is lesser of two evilism and cheerleading the democrats while focusing on the people who are not in power.
We need to propel new alliances and attack the status quo asymmetrically , if we are to change the corporate domination of Amerikan politics in Washington.
Compromise is no longer a viable option .
I have missed some of the news casts on the oil but have been watching that oil pour out unmitigated since they put that cape on (and before). Are there any positive reports out there that I am missing?
I fear the pressures are just too high to permit more than the soda straw’s worth to be sucked up. Do you think they plan to announce success and hope we will go away? Thank God Congress forced them to provide the video feeds. Otherwise they might get away with it.
Amen !
We need a politicians willing to act on progressive principles , without regards for their political future .
We need to organise outside both the two party system and the voting booth as an empowered citizenry .
We are 99 % of the population , the power lies ultimately with us , the people !
Jesus Christ. I’ve been here on FDL for a year or more under my own name, I post at Open Left occasionally, and I’ve been on the internet under my own name for at least five years.
My point is that the dishonest, shallow center-right major media is killing us (killing anyone to the left of Obama) and that we should be grateful for anyone in the major media who does not fit that description. That’s not asking a lot, because there’s almost no one to be grateful for.
And the second point is that polemics are perfectly OK. We need polemics. We’re not trying for a gentleman’s agreement or a mutual understanding with the Republicans. We really have to discredit them while selling our own brand. And they completely deserve the polemics, they’re off-the-charts deluded and mean.
If his language were’t so vile I would have liked to get into a discussion of just those aspects you mention. We do need to be constantly working on and evolving strategies We are oppressed, and the approach will by necessity be “asymmetrical.”
But I think a more vigorous ideology or movement must form. Rachel is one who has the ability to describe the way it is and the way it can be.
I am not sure it is timely to be focusing on slice and dice deal cutting with those who only share one aspect of our aspirations. But I reveal once again my discomfort with “politics”
Suppose we all flip the light switch in our living rooms on and off in unison or take the week off and declare it a national holiday .
Our autonomy is our best and only weapon !
Your discomfort with politics proves your wisdom .
One day politics will be seen for what it is , self serving used car salesmanship .
I just saw a headline to the effect that (alleged) experts claim it might capture 90 percent of the flow.
I hope that is true but suspect it is just more PR damage control BS from BP.
Thanks. Yes, pray that it will. I just can’t yet take on imagining the impact of 2 more months at the rates we are seeing.
I have been posting here as John Emerson for at least two years, and elsewhere under my own name five or six years.
My points here are that we need polemics, polemics are a good thing, and second, that there are so few halfway decent people in the major media that we should be grateful for them. The dishonest, shallow center-right/right major media are killing us (everyone to the left of Obama).
I’ve been fighting this battle for eight years and it seems hopeless. We still have the people who think that politics is dirty and we should be nice and cool and intellectual, and we still have the people who don’t realize that the media are killing us.
Remember Michelle Obama at the farmers market ? This from the Oregonian :
The opening of farmers markets keeps small Oregon growers busy this time of year, picking, packing and selling their produce.
But rather than being focused on their fields, many are watching Washington, D.C., where they fear their fate could be sealed by a food safety bill.
The Food Safety Modernization Act before the U.S. Senate would bolster the Food and Drug Administration and tighten regulations, overhauling a system that dates to 1906.
There’s been virtually no outcry from large producers over the bill. But a number of small farmers in Oregon — and elsewhere — say it would add an unfair burden, putting many of them out of business.
“All farmers are for food safety,” said Scott Frost, the 53-year-old owner of Nature’s Fountain Farm in Albany, which produces fruits and vegetables for farmers markets and restaurants. “But this could make farmers markets go away. The only guys left standing in the room will be the big gorillas.”
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/oregons_small-scale_farms_worr.html
That’s the greatest fear the oppressors have. That the people will be of one mind and act on it.
Of course that is why those who can describe and bring common perceptions together are so important.
Corporate control of our government needs to be shaken before we can build infrastructure and alternatives to our energy needs or for that matter to any need we face as a species on this planet .
Since there are so few “journalists” in the MSM who will even speak up about what is happening in our country, I truly appreciate when Rachel Maddow speaks up (regardless of which party is affected). If Rachel or any other journalist solely points out the hypocrisy from one party while ignoring that occurring in the other party, they lose credibility. The MSM unfortunately lacks the Edward R. Murrow “journalists” today which is detrimental to true democracy and we must use a number of sources to get at the “truth”. Those of us not associated with MSM should support journalists such as Rachel Maddow when they do speak up and to truth.
Here are the Food Safety bills being referred to:
H.R. 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009
Text of S. 1269: Food Safety Rapid Response Act
Yes but she front loaded her spiel with words that directly invite us to identify ourselves with Obama. That’s propaganda, not journalism.
Her entire rant is basically a coded version of “Dont blame Obama”.
Thats what her argueing its not another Katrina means. Folks had been trying to dub this Obama’s Katrina, and she is doing what dutiful democratic establisment propogandist do. She is shilling at the highest order trying to innoculate her overlords.
Never mind the seriously flawed Obama appointments that contributed greatly to all this. Nevermind the administrations completely hands off approach for weeks. No no, apparently journalists are not suppose to question their side of the government anymore.
Thats what journalists are suppose to do? Do you even know what a journalist is?
Where will all the oil bowl refugees go? This will make the dust bowl migrations of the 1930s look like small potatoes.
So this is what constitutes Progressive outrage in the MSM circa 2010, eh?
Some
HighlightsLowlights: But I’m also pretty sure that President Obama will feel disgusted. And we know this how?it smells bad, it is slimy, it is sticky, it is toxic, even if Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour wants to say that it’s not...…and Mary Landrieu.
Disgusted that American leaders screamed “drill baby drill” without considering the consequences, you mean like Obama.
Big Oil has been too rich to care about what it was putting us all at risk for. And “we’ve” been too cowardly to change direction and break free from them. Who is We’ve?
If that changes because of our national disgust at this disaster, then America’s political system in 2010 works. If it doesn’t change, then it doesn’t work. Translation: Elect more and Better Democrats.
Frankly, this is high school level stuff. Proactive, faux outrage meant to Protect President Dreamboat from criticism. Please, this has been going on for 45 days and suddenly, TV’s Rhodes Scholar gets angry. Pleeezze!
How blatant does the propoganda have to be before people can recognize it?
We all own it huh? Thats reminicent of the financial crash. The megabanks broke it, but suddenly we all had to own it.
This is much like after 9/11. Remember stuff like we can look afterwards at what failed or what was missed but thats not really important now. No time for any of that! Its all about the boogieman Terrorist right now. Oh sorry BP.
Ignore blame. Ignore accountablity. The crisis is too big for all that. No, only some vague expression of discontent through voting in a rigged system with 2 faces of the same corporate party to vote for will determine the outcome of this crisis.
I just dont understand how people can keep calling this same regurgitated propoganda as journalism. Stop insulting real journalist.
President Obama IS complicit in this oil catastrophe due to a continued placement of corporate shills in places where true regulation is needed. In addition, he has blatantly supported the “drill, baby, drill” philosophy and many people are well aware of this.
Actually, I don’t think Rachel is necessarily saying “vote for a Democrat”. Why? Because, many people are well aware that BOTH Democrats and Republicans are not representing “we the people”. If we want change, we need to look outside of these two parties.
Also keep in mind that lately the big sleight in the polls against Obama is that he doesnt seem angry enough about the disaster.
So what does she do? Super-progandist Maddow creates a fictional seer into the future visit that Obama is at the coast and is overwhelmed and then disgusted 7 times over! That sounds pretty irate! Obama actaully is mad about it! Or, um, well, we can now all be assured he will be, when his actual trip that she is helping to lay the PR groundwork for takes place.
Somebody asked how the people of Florida are responding.
WELL I DON’T KNOW HOW THIS LOSER BLOG WOULD KNOW SINCE THEY SEEM TO CENSOR ANYTHING NEGATIVE AGAINST RACHEL MADDOW and her “coverage”?
Rachel is a shill and she only “preaches” to diaper-wearing losers who have no brains. She never gets to the truth.
Dream on loser blog.
I learned absolutely nothing of value from your comment. So, if this is why your “negative” comments are censored, I can understand.
I thought that Keith Olbermann was the Edward R. Murrow of our time…he seems to think so, anyway.
Whatever plane of existence Murrow currently resides on…I’m guessing he’d strongly disagree.
Murrow spoke truth to power…Olbermann only speaks truth to SOME powers.
Current power most definitely excluded.
Nice way to protect Barry’s rear end. There is not doubt if McCain were President that Maddow would be howling from the roof tops about it being his fault.
I notice she got drill baby drill in there too. Ignoring that Barry also proposed some drilling.
I’m not saying it was Barry’s fault–though I note the basketball teams he spent time with, etc. since the spill–but on the other hand, Maddow complains that “the government” let BP be in charge of the spill.
Who the hell does she think “the government” is? Each agency that would have allowed BP to be in charge of the spill is headed by an Obama appointee and all of them are subject to Obama’s authority.
Nice protection of the Obama rear end.
Since the spill, George Bush has had no say in what happens. So, cut the excuses and get producing results.
Aside from that, was it “BP’s” fault? When you track it down, you will find it was a specific person with a specific name (likely more than one but less than 10) who F’d up something and caused the explosion and blowout. Saying “it’s BP’s fault” masks over the personal responsibility some one or one’s have.
somebody did something they should not have done or didn’t do something they should have done. Not an organization–a specific person or person’s. And, let’s not hide them in “BP’s fault.”
The problem is we don’t have an Edward R. Murrow “of our time” in the MSM which is hurting our country. We need journalists and media willing to research, find the facts, and report the facts regardless of whether a particular political party is hurt in the process. If we lose a credible media, then you can’t have a “democracy”. At that point, “we the people” are being force fed information whether it be by the state (example, China) or Corporations (example, U.S.).
In 1993 800 million gallons were dumped into the Persian Gulf. 85% of it got cleaned up, but that took a virtual armada of idle tankers brought into the PG from around the world to suck the shit up.
Remember seeing a picture of 100s of ships parked somewhere around Malaysia some months ago, looked like a zombie ship repository, and there were also tankers!
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/could-cleanup-fix-for-gulf-oil-spill-lie-in-secret-saudi-disaster/19476863
Why is Obama not insisting on protecting the Gulf using a proven technique? Can someone fucking tell me why Rachel, being so fucking concerned didn’t relate that incident? – or, did she? (I stopped watching ever since that promising progressive turned into a Democratic shill post election)
I frankly wonder whether the intent here is to so devastate the Gulf of Mexico as to make it worthless for any other purposes then drilling.
OK, OK, I got it.
Olbermann really isn’t Edward R. Murrow.
I suspected as much…
Isn’t the “you” Rachel is referring to, the collective “you” and not referring to President Obama? For that reason, when she refers to the government and “drill, baby, drill” (which President Obama has endorsed), it IS an indictment of this administration, the last administration, and those who continue to support that position. As for Katrina, isn’t she saying that it isn’t Katrina because we will have to live with the consequences to our eco-system for the rest of our lives and it is therefore in the grand scheme of things, far worse for everyone?
I think she was inviting Obama to identify with us and the folks on the Coast especially.
Do I think MSNBC is a corporate shill for the Democratic party? Yes, as long as it brings in revenue, that is what they will be. And is there anywhere in TV land to find a centrist/vaguely left of center view? Not that I am aware of. Do you know that GE owns NBC/MSNBC (since 1986)? Ever hear of Jack Welch? If you think the coporate mandate of GE has changed one iota since Jack Welch’s mandate, you’re wrong. To give a reporter money to follow a story (and, folks, here is the tough part – the news organizations are looking solely to their bottom line so most requests to followup on leads are denied because it would hurt profit – that trend started in the mid to late 1980′s)that goes against what corporate America wants you to see is a pretty big deal. Is it what we want? Hell, no. Is it anywhere near what it should be? No again. But this is what we’ve got and I think some lightly tossed kudos is a good idea if we want to see any more slightly left reporting on TV.
No, as someone who lives in a area where a massive spill took place some years ago, I can tell you that it isn’t “for the rest of our lives.”
A hell of a lot of trouble and mess now, but eventually, it will return to how it was before.
Oh, yeah, there were those who thought the spill here would be forever.
Again, don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying there is nothing wrong with it, or it isn’t a big deal–it’s a huge deal. Only that it will one day return to the beautiful place it was before the spill. Hard to picture I know, but from experience, it will.
Olbermann is more like John Stewart of maybe Glenn Beck than Edward R. Morrow. Worse, he doesn’t know it. He actually thinks he’s like Murrow.
He’s like the kid walking down the hall of school with “kick me” on his back but doesn’t know it.
Please provide an example of a place where a massive oil spill has now returned to “how it was before”. If there is such a place, how many decades did it take? If a person defines a “beautiful place” only by what they see on the surface, then you may be right.
My local green congressional candidate is calling for a reduction in military spending by half and using the money saved to pay reparations, $1000/month for decades, for the black decedents of slaves! (This is a rather white district.) I asked him why he wanted to do that, since I thought it was a totally losing issue to run on.
He said because he believed in it, but he looked like an oily politician. I figured he was a troll, the equivalent of a nark but in politics. (I just made that up.) He didn’t seem to like me at all.
I am a big time legalization of marijuana activist and we have the issue on the ballot and the Green Party candidate is not running on it? Go figure.
Maybe I should stop coming back to read the ends of threads. Lotsa cwazy here.
Thank you for posting this.
i had quite watching Rachel after her kiss up to Obama during the health care fiasco.
I’m glad to see she still has some journalist in her.
I love comin’ back to the threads to see what the trolls have been up to. I’m rarely disappointed. It’s like leaving young kids in a room alone with fingerpaints.
who are the trolls and which parts are crazy?
where do you two stand on RM, and by the way; have you read the magnificent piece Jane posted yesterday?
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/06/03/can-the-internet-fix-politics/
go read it, before you wind up being the trolls here.
Think as you like. I doubt Obama watches Maddow or cares what she says, however here we lumpen are discussing her shtick.
I wouldn’t be opposed to that, demi.
Exactly. The only way at this point in time that “we the people” can change what is presented in the media is to SUPPORT when information is presented in the best interests of the people. This is what Rachel Maddow did in this story, and for that I support it.
Obama, come clean and admit your complicity in this disaster. YOU lifted the ban on offshore drilling after promising during your campaign to leave it in place because as you stated “the environmental risks are too great.” YOU gave BP the permit to drill and the exemptions on environmental impact. YOU appointed the incompetent oil industry shill, Salazar, to the Dept of Interior. Salazar’s environmental record was abysmal, yet YOU hired this man to protect our natural resources. Salazar should be fired and I look forward to firing you in 2012. You can run, but you cannot hide. “Summertime and the water’s oily. Fish are dying and the beaches are black. Obama hides and BP runs the show. Hush, little sheeple, don’t you cry…”