MORE OIL SPILL BLUES

I'm not fond of CNN's John KIng so I was happy to see Candy Crowley replace him today on State Of The Union. She's no beauty, so I like to imagine that she actually might have gotten hired because of her journalistic skills. She did ask "Why aren't we seeing more images of oily pelicans?", perhaps hinting at the fact t...hat BP, with the government's help, is controlling the images of this disastrous spill.



Crazily, she then did a segment called "BP's Battered Image." A publicist was interviewed to see what BP needed to do to resuscitate it's image. WHAT?? Who cares about the company's image--the damn dying birds and marine life? The broke fishermen? The poor people who are still shattered from Katrina? Besides BP employees and politicians payed by them, who could possibly be rooting for BP right now? That segment made no sense to me.

If BP really wanted to resuscitate their image, they'd stop the leak before more irreparable damage is done. And if they'd given a hoot about their image to begin with, they would've already had the two relief wells drilled and have had other preventative safety measures in place.

But what kind of new coverage is this? Why are we even discussing public perceptions of the company responsible for the worst environmental disaster of our time? Forget the image and focus what BP HAS done. Then convict the bastards.

Here's what we know they've been up to:

They've ignored safety restrictions and common sense to place their profits above the health of our planet. One witness claims to have seen a discussion on board the now sunken rig in which a BP exec insisted that the drilling company use sea water, which is riskier, rather than the safer drilling mud because water was cheaper. Wasn't this the cause of the whole fiasco?

Payed off safety regulators with everything from gifts to drugs to porn. (OK, so BP's not all bad.)

Initially downplayed the # of barrels gushing into the ocean since the oil giant will be fined per barrel.

Actually called the crisis minor.

Sprayed dispersants into the ocean AFTER the government told them not to. Dispersants whose effects aren't even known. But you can't be fined on oil that is dispersed, can you? Because it can't ever be measured after it's dispersed.

Clean-up workers are getting sick from the spill. Faux clean-up workers were bused in for Obama's visit/photo op and let go after Obama left. (And Obama, if I know this, then YOU know this.)

And BP shooed away reporters because of lord-knows-what-else they're hiding. The Coast Guard helped them. Don't our taxes fund the Coast Guard? Then why are they protecting the privacy of a British company when it concerns the damage they're responsible for in our waters which is headed towards our shores?

One of my favorite talk radio hosts, Randi Rhodes, claimed that we would not see the whole, nasty story about this spill because ALL of our news networks want BP's ad money so they soft-pedal the crisis and it's links to our corrupt government. And if she weren't correct, WHY WOULD A NEWS SEGMENT SEEK TO RESUSCITATE AN OBVIOUSLY GUILTY CRIMINAL LIKE BP? Would you ever see a news segment on how to restore the image of the earthquake in Haiti? No, because that earthquake doesn't have BP's billions.

Another thing I don't understand about the oil spill is that BP was supposedly closing up shop there when the rig collapsed. If there's so much oil still spewing which will continue to spew at least until the relief wells are built in August, why were they leaving all that oil and closing up shop?