Morning Bell: Oil Spill Response is “Stuck on Stupid”

Rory Cooper / July 12, 2010

If you only listened to President Obama, you wouldn’t even know an oil spill is occurring in the Gulf. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the oil spill since June 22 when he announced it was on a laundry list of items discussed at a cabinet meeting. Before that, on June 16, he spoke briefly after negotiating his secret liability deal with BP. Other than those two instances, the president hasn’t spent another public moment focusing on the spill since he began fighting the “battle” against “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced” from the Oval Office four weeks ago.

The media not only haven’t asked him a question about the crisis, they have been complicit in its degradation, allowing the president to ignore the plight of his fellow Americans without journalistic oversight. In less than two weeks, we’ll hit Day 100, and the media will regain focus for the arbitrary and news-friendly date, but what will they cover on Day 101? And imagine BP manages to cap the leak – as we all pray occurs – without the streaming video of oil gushing, how much attention will the national media and the president give to the remaining environmental and economic crisis?

The Heritage Foundation sent a team of experts to Louisiana last week to see first-hand the crisis and the coordinated response. Based on earlier reports, our expectations were low. However, the federal government’s involvement turned out to be so much worse. (more…)