Absolutely Clueless 2: The Oil Spill

by James Frye

As more and more people watch the BP/Halliburton oil spill spread and cause more damage, the usual suspects on the far right are saying, “Drill, baby, drill even more!” Amazing.

First we have the ever-wrong comedy stylings of Bill Kristol saying not only should we drill more, we should drill CLOSER to the shore. I suppose so we don’t have to wait so long for beach and ecological damage:

“Look, it was a bad accident but the fact is I think we get one-third of our domestic oil from the Gulf, from offshore drilling in the Gulf. We need it. We can’t cut back on it,” said Kristol.

He admitted it was a bad accident, but blamed it on the rig’s distance from the coast.

“If we hadn’t stopped closer-in drilling after the Santa Barbara accident 40 years ago — we’ve had these Congressional restrictions until 2008, for 40 years — we’d have more drilling closer in which is probably less dangerous, less treacherous than trying to drill 50 miles out from the coast,” Kristol explained.

Wow. But it gets better. Rightwing/Teabagger darling Sarah Palin is chimes in too.

As an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico grows larger by the hour, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continues to stick to “drill, baby, drill.”

In a 30-minute speech to a Republican crowd in Kansas City Saturday, the onetime Republican vice presidential nominee dubbed the gulf spill “very tragic” but added: “I want our country to be able to trust the oil industry.”

And why shouldn’t we? After all, according to Democratic(?) Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS), this is just like spilt chocolate milk (much more appetizing, as evidenced in the picture, than an oil spill).

I doubt Rep. Taylor will get many Democrats to agree with him on that one, but then again, Taylor has a history of supporting expanded oil drilling. He has voted to lift the ban on drilling in ANWR and voted against a moratorium on offshore drilling. He also voted against the House’s clean energy bill.

So in this edition of “Absolutely Clueless” we can’t just blame Republicans. We’ll just blame it on conservatives.

By: James Frye

Long time progressive activist in the Pacific Northwest and self-studying student of politics