August 17, 2007

bob-murray.jpg The headline comes from Arianna Huffington.

Why did it take until this morning for CNN to finally run a chyron saying "Safety of Rescue Operation Debated"? For 12 days, there was precious little debate about why the mine had collapsed in the first place, or about the safety of the rescue operation -- which was, by law, in the hands of Stickler, another "heck of a job" Bush special, a coal industry insider who couldn't even win the approval of a GOP-controlled Senate.

So here we are, 12 days after the first collapse, with three heroic rescuers dead, six others injured, and the original six trapped miners almost certainly lost forever. And, finally, we have Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman suggesting we "focus like never before on workplace safety" (the Governor had better be prepared for the wrath of Murray: when Hillary Clinton made a similar statement months ago about the importance of workplace safety, Murray attacked her as "anti-American.")

So why wasn't the focus on workplace safety the focus of the media from Day One? It shouldn't have taken the deaths of 3 miners for those covering the story to have gotten that message...read on

When I pointed out Murray's insipid attacks against global warming, my quotes came up in a NY Times (The Lede) article that was doing a round up of reactions about Murray. Patrick Lyons seems to be interested in the vitriol he whipped up instead of his actions.

Crooks and Liars attacks Mr. Murray’s criticism of efforts in Congress to minimize global warming; Chesapeake Climate paints his defense of coal as alarmist, and Firedoglake sarcastically paints him an apologist for greed.

Why was I accused of attacking the man when he clearly had a political agenda while controlling the media during this horrible situation and I pointed that out? Here's some of my post.

Amidst the tragedy of the trapped coal miners in Utah, Bob Murray said this:

We’re going to get them,” said Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp. of Cleveland, a part-owner of the Crandall Canyon mine. “There is nothing on my mind right now except getting those miners out.

Nothing on his mind other saving the miners, really? video_wmv Download (1741) | Play (1488) video_mov Download (794) | Play (322)

Digby follows up with:

Tragically, a whole bunch of people have died and others are injured but so far, we've heard almost nothing about this "star's" background in pushing unsafe mining techniques and anti-union policies and neither have we heard anything about the fact that the man Bush named to be the "mine safety czar" was such a bad choice for the job that he had to give him a recess appointment with a Republican congress...read on.

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