Miss Information

One of the problems with public discourse in this country is how few different voices are amplified through the media. There seems to be a coterie of about fifty Beltway/media insiders who play musical chairs on all the cable news analysis shows, and they act as an echo chamber for one another. You know these people: the loathsome Tucker Carlson, Joe Klein, James Carville, Presidential plagiarist … I mean historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pat Buchanan, and the rest of the talking head set. Surely, the most ubiquitous of these mainstream media analysts is the near omnipresent Andrea Mitchell of NBC News.

Today the Chris Mathews Show, sponsored by ConocoPhillips, among others, was an ugly farce of a news analysis show. they spend the whole first segment on this pressing topic:

“Perfect Failures? Why do Democratic candidates campaign like robots? Will Hillary Clinton make the same mistake?”

Okay, yeah, right, all Democrats are like robots … and if they don’t act like robots the media, including you Chris Matthews, savage them as you did Howard Dean or Theresa Heinz Kerry; oh yeah, and Bill Clinton was no robot, but why let facts get in the way of trashing Democrats?

After five minutes of condescendingly tearing at Hillary Clinton (including a video montage edited to show that “she is trying to play it safe on immigration, Iraq and abortion”), John Kerry and even Michael Dukakis (I’m not making this up!), the topic turns to something that actually matters: the high cost of oil and gasoline.

First they show oilman Bush in the Rose Garden taking his usual incompetent, grammatically-challenged B.S.:

BUSH: I’m concerned about higher gasoline prices, I’m concerned about what it means to the working families and small business and I’m mindful that the government has the responsibility to make sure that we watch very carefully.

Chris Matthews throws the discussion to Mitchell, saying, "Well, Andrea, he’s concerned and he’s watching, but he’s not promising to cut those prices."

Andrea Mitchell, dressed in a bright orange Mao tunic like she waited tables at Chinese restaurant on Venus, proceeds to totally misinform the American public about the causes of and possible solutions to high gas prices.

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: He can’t. He has no control over this. This is completely outside of his control.

Yeah, right. The President of the United States can do nothing, Andrea. He can’t release oil stocks from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, right? Or he couldn’t, say, impose a $2/gallon tax on gasoline to stanch demand here in the oil consuming capitol of the world? What about sitting down for diplomatic talks with Iran, what would that do to the price of crude? What about slapping a tariff on Chinese imports, to slow their oil-sucking economy? What about demanding fuel efficiency from Detroit, especially for those f*cking SUVs? But wait, Mitchell is just talking the ConocoPhillips corporate line.

MITCHELL (Cont’d):First of all china and India, China in particular. Huge growth, soaking up energy, buying energy contracts anywhere they can get it. And very thin margins, thin supplies, because countries like Nigeria and Iran and Venezuela are not really motivated to overproduce the way the Saudis have been, frankly.

So far, this is all true, and it's interesting that Mitchell acknowledges the special relationship between the Saudis and the USA, whereby we keep them in power and buy their oil, and, in exchange, the Saudis invest their enormous profits in U.S. Treasury bills and manages the world price of oil in keeping with U.S. interests. But now Mitchell reveals her ignorance… a strange gap in knowledge for the wife of the former Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank.

MITCHELL (Cont’d): Their nationalized countries their oil companies don’t have any real incentive to produce the way some of the other countries and American companies, Armamco in Saudi Arabia in particular. So you’re not going to see a change in this.

Uh, “Aramco” is not an American company, Andrea. Aramco was nationalized by Saudi Arabia which had 100 percent control as of 1980, and the company’s US managers were replaced by Saudi management in 1990. By the way, it’s called “Saudi Aramco” now. Furthermore, Nigeria has plenty of American companies working there like Texaco and ExxonMobil.

MITCHELL (Cont'd):As long as the Iran crisis continues and as long as these thin margins continues. And all of this was exacerbated by something we put on our own selves. Congress passed a new ethanol blend for gasoline, and refineries weren’t ready, geared up to produce it.

I’m surprised she blames Congress here, instead of environmentalists. Also, that we have an “Iran Crisis” that Bush can’t affect is laughable. Where do these people find such nonsense, and how do they get to be thought leaders? Andrea Mitchell is truly Miss Information.

Bt wait, here comes Chris Matthews, echoing the talking points.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: The situation of a low production and high demand worldwide, that’s a reality that the president can’t change. He can’t get these countries like Venezuela and Nigeria to pump more and can’t get these big countries like India and China to buy less.

Yeah, right.

We need more, better voices on TV. Until then, thank goodness for the Internet. At least there you can read about the reality of Peak Oil.