Why are politically-themed op-eds so inaccurate and poorly sourced?<p><a href="http://factcheck.org/2010/06/oil-spill-foreign-help-and-the-jones-act/" rel="nofollow">http://factcheck.org/2010/06/oil-spill-foreign-help-and-the-...</a>
Read the whole thing. It's a well-written attack piece, paid for by somebody.<p>I really love 2 things about it, that are glaringly overlooked. In discussing the oil disaster and the cleanup efforts so far, and why the latter hasn't been as effective as one might have liked, he cites just about everything <i>except</i> these 2 points, rather suspiciously:<p>1. new oil is STILL leaking into the Gulf -- cleaning now is a bit like running just to stand still, there will be more flowing out and hitting the beaches tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, etc.<p>2. BP/Transocean/Halliburton are primarily at fault, both for the original accident/leak, and for not stopping it quicker. I don't buy the argument that somehow because a government oversight agency was not as aggressive as it could have been, and/or was bribed BY these oil companies to back off and let them ignore rules that THEREFORE the government is anywhere near as at fault as the <i>oil companies</i> in question. It's a bit like blaming the police for not stopping a murderer -- rather than blaming the murderer. Hello?!
When something obvious isn't happening all you have to do is go look for the people that have a vested interest in preventing said thing from happening. In the current oil spill fiasco there are way too many powerful groups with opposing interests and politicians don't want to step on their toes because all politicians need large sums of money from these opposing interests to finance their campaigns. So it's no wonder the bureaucracy is moving at a snail's pace.
You know you're reading a right/conservative/Repub/FoxNews-like source when the very 1st suggestion discussed for improving the clean up effort is this:<p>"First, the Environmental Protection Agency can relax restrictions on the amount of oil in discharged water, currently limited to 15 parts per million."<p>Welcome to Bizarro World. We do things backwards here.<p>EDIT: skushch's reply below made a good clarification. When I originally read that portion of the article I didn't realize that was the argument made. I just saw how the very 1st solution recommended was that the EPA should allow more oil in the water, which was hilarious and consistent with many other "pro-pollution/pro-greed" efforts I've seen from The Right in past years, and I reacted to that. So on this single narrow point I think the article <i>does</i> make sense: we <i>should</i> temporarily drop any rule that commits the error of letting the quest for perfection be the enemy of the good enough now. The overall article I still think is an attack piece with highly cherry-picked statements and convenient blinders on.