Political Irony

McCain gave a speech last week in Houston to an audience of oil executives, announcing he now supports offshore oil drilling. To justify his flip-flop, he claimed that drilling is now so safe that “not even Hurricane Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from battered rigs off the coast of New Orleans and Houston.” You can read the transcript or watch him say it:

Unfortunately, the truth is that it is easy to find many reports of oil spills due to hurricane Katrina. Here’s a story from the Houston Chronicle. In fact, the Katrina oil spills were compared to those from the Exxon Valdez, and were even visible from space:

So, does our ever-vigilant media report this error by McCain?  Let’s see what they have to say:

• “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn’t cause a single oil spill.” – Wall Street Journal editorial
• “Obama talks about environmental damage from drilling offshore but the fact is the moratorium was put into effect in 1981. There’s been a lot of technological advances since then. We had Hurricane Katrina go through the heart of the Gulf of Mexico and ravage these oil rigs and there were almost no oil spills, so what’s he talking about?” – Chris Wallace on Fox News (plus Dick Morris said “Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause any leakage or any spill in the Gulf of Mexico oil wells.”)
• “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed or damaged hundreds of drilling rigs without causing a large spill.” – George Will in the Washington Post

What makes this even worse is that it is a craven, evil lie. The Republicans are trying to convince you that high oil prices are due to environmental regulations that limit off-shore drilling. But Department of Energy figures show that allowing unlimited drilling offshore (and in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, too) would lower the price of gasoline — are you sitting down? — by less than 6 cents a gallon. And not until the year 2025. Try to imagine how much gas will cost in 2025, and how glad you will be that we mucked up our beaches and wildlife for 6 cents a gallon.

Also note that 79% of America’s offshore oil reserves are not even restricted by those regulations. But the oil companies, and their representatives in Washington, can’t wait to get rid of any remaining environmental restrictions.

The governor of Iowa requested that McCain cancel a campaign visit to the flood-stricken state, because that would divert law enforcement away from flood relief efforts in order to provide security for McCain. But McCain refused and went anyway, visiting several sites. This despite the fact that President Bush’s tour of the state diverted hundreds of law enforcement officers away from flood recovery to provide the necessary security.

Last week, Obama cancelled a scheduled visit to Iowa at the request of Iowa state officials, and went to less flooded areas of Illinois instead.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-06-19-mccain-iowa-trip_N.htm

Despite Obama’s message of change in Washington, some of his recent actions look more like the old politics.

For example, Obama recently recorded an endorsement for incumbent Congressman John Barrow of Georgia. Never mind that Barrow is an extremely conservative “blue dog” Democrat whose pro-war, pro-big-business, pro-eavesdropping, pro-telecom-amnesty and pro-Bush positions are what Obama has been promising to change. In contrast, Barrow’s primary race challenger Regina Thomas is a progressive whose opinions are firmly in line with Obama’s stated positions. So why is Obama supporting Barrow?

This is too reminiscent of Obama’s endorsement of Joe Lieberman in his race for the Senate, against anti-war Democrat Ned Lamont. Now of course, Liberman is paying back the favor by endorsing McCain (some say even trying to become his VP).

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/19/obama/index.html

Finally, there is Obama’s troubling support of the FISA bill (even if you include his weak-kneed promise to try to remove telecom immunity from the bill). This is a bill that has been engineered by telecom lobbyists, for telecom lobbyists, and represents the old corrupt Washington ways at their worst. How can this be Change?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/obama_backing_fisa_compromise.php

UPDATE: Atrios names Obama “Wanker of the Day”.

UPDATE 2: Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of Obama’s support for the FISA bill. It ain’t pretty.

© Dick Locher

The moral? People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Republicans should stop taking Michelle Obama’s remarks out of context to smear her, and instead concentrate on real issues.

UPDATE: The Jed Report has discovered that Fox News removed McCain’s words saying he didn’t love America from their transcript of the interview. Hmmm, I wonder how that happened? Good thing we still have the video.