You’re accusing me of overreach, but I don’t believe I’ve done that. I did not say this is anything like an “Officially Licensed Conservative Response.” (Add your own triumphant theme music here, and a visual of light coming down from the heavens.) I’m not expecting Republican leaders to hold a press conference today. What I said was that this was the conservative response that I have received.
I live in New Orleans; as you can imagine, the oil spill is what people are talking about. I had not heard this argument before yesterday, but it was espoused last night at a dinner party by several of my intelligent conservative friends. After about a five minute perusal of mainstream conservative media sites this morning, I find it cropping up more often that I would have thought. I posted to ask if anyone else had come across this viewpoint. Evidently, other posters were also able to find the theory that the feared effects of the spill have been overblown, and all on conservative blogs and sites.
To accuse me of pretending that this is The Conservative Response, put forth by leaders and featured in talking-points memos everywhere is a stretch. On the other hand, I wouldn’t classify it a completely fringe view of the right–I would save that categorization for the eco-terrorist allegations.
In print, mainly American Prospect (very-center-left), The Nation (a bit further left shading into socialism), and no daily newspapers at all. On radio, Democracy Now!, Radio Nation, Pacifica Network News. On TV . . . nothing. Not even MSNBC.
Galveston, of course, is a major petroleum handling port where spills, large and small, have been occurring regularly for something over 80 years. Galveston’s beaches also share the portion of the coast dominated by the even larger oil port of Houston.
Noting that there is oil on Galveston beaches is like noting that there is conifer pollen in Seattle or sand grit in Tucson. It says nothing about the actual oil on beaches throughout the Gulf any more than one expects to find sand grit in Seattle.
OK, thanks. Although you did identify it as “The Official Conservative Response,” your title does say “Conservative response,” so you at least did identify it as a response from “conservatives.”
Look, it just hacks me off how SDMB liberals are constantly finding some idiot and then saying that this person is “the face of” the conservatives, or the Republican Party, or the Tear Partiers, or whatever.
By fully explaining and disclaiming as you have in the post above, I think we can absolve you this time. Go forth and sin no more.
The not sinning part will be tough, but I agree with everything else. I, too, hate being categorized, a practice which I freely admit occurs on both ends of the political spectrum.
I’m happy to infer, though, that you disagree with the “natural seepage, earth can take care of it naturally” nonsense.
You, however, did not actually answer the question posed to you, above. Who do YOU consider to be the Conservative News Outlet? I’m sure we’d all like to see what your favorite pundits are saying about this.
I suppose there is some way that the facts could be twisted to make it seem that Gingrich is not a conservative, not a prominent conservative, and not a face of conservatives, but I’m not certain how one would do that.
Except that the article wasn’t written by Gingrich. It was written by Steve Everley, who looks to be all of 26 years old.
At any rate, the “conservative” position, as much as I can fathom it, is that they favor offshore drilling, and they would say that this one accident doesn’t invalidate that position. All methods of delivering oil have risks. Let’s learn from this accident and see what we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
And I’m not sure that’s much different from Obama’s position.
I’d be happy if the ‘conservatives’ are right about this (assuming we can call this a conservative view). It’d be great if this is really a media event perpetrated by chest-beating eco fascists. It would be swell if the whole thing is a lie and really Not That Big A Deal.
Conservatives, Libruls, Libertarians or nutjobs, please persuade me that this is the case!
You’re probably right, but for the kiddies, wanna spell out the DFH position?
The official conservative viewpoint will come from Beck and Limbaugh on Monday. The rest of the conservatives are waiting patiently. It is the liberals fault however. You don’t have to wait until Monday for that part of it.
When “Democracy Now” airs on Monday. it will talk about the spill. I doubt they will affix blame to the conservatives. It will be hard not to give BP a big piece though.
That’s a fine position. However, if it’s not fair to go to a website led by Gingrich to find conservative positions, that sets the bar a little high. Where are you finding conservatives outlining the position you describe?
And if that conservative position is similar to Obama’s, that’s significant in terms of people complaining that Obama is too liberal. Too liberal my left buttcheek.
Well, won’t be me. One thing the “this is nothing special” crowd have going for them right now is that, except for a smallish area of the Mississippi delta, the slick hasn’t reached shore yet. This stands to hold true maybe through Tuesday or so, with winds probably keeping the main body of the slick 10-20 miles off the Mississippi and Alabama coasts. If winds tack around and start blowing toward shore, though, I reckon by the end of the week most of 'em will start singing a different tune. Well, not Rush, of course. But others. Probably.
It’s what I’ve heard from the “conservatives” on the Sunday morning talk shows. But I was just pointing out that we don’t really know how much Gingrich endorses that view. Besides, that article was written more as a news piece (with a bit of political spin) than an editorial. Suppose I had quoted this part from the article, and said it was the conservative view:
I’d say that was out of context. The quote in the OP was the money quote, inasmuch as it said that this second set of experts was putting things “in context.”
Well, I don’t know how to determine what is and isn’t a “money quote”, but the fact is this is a few sentences from an article written by someone I’ll bet no on this MB had ever heard of before toady.
Would the drill, baby, drill crowd latch onto something like that uncritically? Probably. Just like many on this MB will latch onto the OP’s declaration that this is the “conservative position” uncritically.
I’m not latching onto anything being the conservative position. That quote, however, is clearly a money quote in the article. Do you think such an absurd idea would show up in an objective article? It’s the quote that distinguishes the story from reasonable journalism; ergo the money quote.
And I’m not latching onto anything; on the contrary, I’m asking, critically, what would constitute a significant example of a conservative position. So far we’ve got somebody writing for Newt Gingrich’s organization, and unnamed talking heads on unnamed TV shows. I’m not sure your examples are more persuasively the conservative position. (They may well be, with specifics; but until I see specifics, I’ll hold out.)
