Road Rebel – V1 E60 – When Reality Doesn’t Work For You, Just Make Stuff Up

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, someone cranks the “bugnuts” dial up to 11.

The Gulf Coast region is dealing with a disaster of historic proportions. As much as 210,000 gallons of oil are spewing into the Gulf of Mexico each day, and have been for two weeks. Thousands of lives, human and animal will be affected. Economies will be shattered, lives changed. An attempt to cap the well in underway, but no one has ever attempted such a procedure, and if it fails, the leak could grow by an order of magnitude.

So whose to blame for this? British Petroleum? TransOcean, the company that BP leased the rig from?

Not if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino and Michael “Heckuva job, Brownie” Brown. NO, according to them, this is Barack Obama’s fault.

We’re not talking about them disagreeing with his policies. No, the direct implication is that someone may have sabotaged the oil rig so that – wait for it – Obama can back away from his support for East Coast drilling.

WTF?

“Brownie” intimated, first with Neil Cavuto on Fox News then on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews that the administration delayed response to the crisis specifically to allow them room to back away from the pledge to expand drilling along the East Coast. Meanwhile, Limbaugh and Perino have suggested, in no uncertain terms, that the rig was sabotaged by someone to stop the drilling along the east coast, and that while the President may not have ordered the sabotage, it may have been someone who is at least an Obama operative.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a while. The idea that anyone would have deliberately done this for political gain is laughable. Especially when you consider that the people who would want to stop oil drilling are highly unlikely to do something so damaging to the environment. But not to Limbaugh:

I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig. … Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade, that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they’re sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they’re sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I’m just noting the timing here.

But that’s where these folks have been heading for some time. When they can’t find something to say that’s based in reality, they make it up out of thin air. Like the claim being thrown around that nature will take care of the oil herself. That we should not worry about the spill, it’ll be fine.

“The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and left out there,” Limbaugh said. “It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is.”

That’s Limbaugh’s view. Never mind that no one with any sense in their head knows that while oil is “natural”, it doesn’t come shooting out of the ground at 200,000 gallons a day by itself. It had some help.

Now, you’ll notice I haven’t said ‘left” or ‘right’ here. That’s because there are idiots on both sides of the aisle. May I present Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS):

TAYLOR: What I want people to know is this isn’t Katrina. This is not Armageddon. I did this for the Coast Guard many years ago. Yeah, it’s bad. And it’s terrible that there’s a spill out there. But I would remind people that the oil is twenty miles from any marsh. … That chocolate milk looking spill starts breaking up in smaller pieces … It is tending to break up naturally.

This was over the weekend. The oil is now onshore. Perhaps he’d like a drink of chocolate milk.

Reality seems to have absolutely no meaning to these folks. Not scientific information. Not verifiable data. No, these folks are just making it up as they go. The sad part is, they have an audience that believes them.

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