The blows keep falling, as more and more journalists dig into the events leading up to the oil rig explosion and the aftermath. The June 9 AP investigative report (BP spill response plans severely flawed) I linked to yesterday has made big waves in Washington and the media. Anderson Cooper quoted from it on his AC-360 news show last night. The report will surely serve as the basis for several questions BP CEO Tony Hayward will be asked by a congressional subcommittee on June 17.
Another investigative report that's having a big impact is Tim Dickinson's June 8 The Spill, The Scandal and the President published in Rolling Stone magazine.
The report chronicles "How Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world's most dangerous oil company get away with murder." Anderson Cooper mentioned the report last night as did John Batchelor's far-reaching radio show.
The two reports called to my mind the exposé of the Vietnam War Pentagon Papers, which helped define a generation. Taken together the AP report and Dickinson's reveal that one of the world's largest companies, a number of government agencies, and an American President greatly misled the public and did so with deliberation. If the oil spill disaster continues to worsen, the duplicity that created it could well define a generation in a way that not even 9/11 did.
The AP report leaves the horror of the facts to speak for themselves. Dickinson's report lapses into polemics several times. But even if he's nursing a grievance toward Obama that many on the Left now share the facts he marshals are so disturbing I think he can be forgiven for see-sawing between reportage and pounding the lectern.
As with the AP report I'm only providing the link for Dickinson's. I think I'm reluctant to quote from the reports out of concern this would risk downplaying their importance by highlighting only a few of the facts they present.
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