Damo, it’s amazing that your memories from 22 years ago are almost exactly like the talking points on Glenn Becks website.
Let’s face it: neither you, I, or anybody else can have reliable “memories” of press coverage from 22 years ago. Speculations, guesswork, and assertions don’t cut it. Glenn Beck can cherry pick a handful of factoids (interestingly, no links or sourcing provided to fact check it), but that amounts to little more than cherry picking facts to support a pre-determined conclusion. I see this tactic with climate science deniers all the time.
My recent recollection, which is more reliable than crap that happened 22 years ago, is that message board liberals have virtually never resorted to blaming Poppy, or harshing on him about Valdez. All the liberal comments on message boards that I can recall harshed on Exxon, and on the SCOTUS for providing cover for Exxon and screwing Alaska fisherman. While Exxon Valdez has been mentioned numerous times on this board, I don’t ever recall liberals screeching about Poppy.
I’m pissed off about this spill, and it’s beyond politics. I’m pissed at Obama, but there’s some salient facts that are undisputable. Exxon Valdez was a stranded tanker that was leaking oil. There was nothing to do but containment and cleanup. A blown out well 5000 feet down on the ocean floor is a whole other universe. No one appears to be quite sure how to contain it or deal with it. It reaches levels of complexity that are orders of magnitude beyond a stranded tanker. The brilliant Ayn Randian captains of industry promised us that they knew what they were doing, but obviously that was flat out wrong.
The oil companies flat out lied and acted with malicious intent in the events surrounding Valdez. The promised to have the proper equipment and crews in place and ready to go at a moments notice. It was all lies. They didn’t have the equipment, and they had phantom crews on “stand by”. That’s what people were pissed about. The oil companies are responsible for clean up. Not the US Taxpayer or the US Coast Guard.
In the context of destroyed Louisiana wetlands, destruction of fishing families, and dead pelicans, it is lame to guess and speculate on how mean the press was to Poppy.
