Back in late July, after a summer of struggle, the underwater oil spill caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig was finally capped. And then, something wonderful and miraculous happened! All of the millions of gallons of oil that poured into the Gulf of Mexico just disappeared! Raptured up into Oil Heaven, even!
Except: not. After absorbing the first spate of media gushing about the wonderful disappearance of all the oil, Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland sent out a couple of text messages to contacts in the area, asking if they could find any oil, and the response she got back was, "Yes, the oil, it is everywhere."
But that's not stopped the administration from taking the line that the oil's disappearance is unalloyed good news, and that it's safe for the bon temps to roulez once more. Huffington Post's own Ben Craw has produced the essential mash-up video of White House Happy Talk, which gets downright hypnotic, in places:
WATCH:
As Huffington Post's own Dan Froomkin has documented, administration estimates may have been "overly optimistic." Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) was quick to call out the White House for promoting a rosy scenario without providing the data to back up their claims. Markey was subsequently joined by Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). They had good reason: many independent scientists, studying the matter on their own, "rejected the government's claims."
I don't know if you have noticed this, but our current administration of "Change" is acting a lot like the last administration. The fact that Obama has declared the Oil Spill problem solved is testimony to this. We the People need to keep this issue in the forefront of our awareness so that we continue the clean up and continue to push for an end to our dependence on oil and other dangerous fossil fuels. We need to innovate our way out of this or we are doomed.