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CBS anchor Katie Couric claimed an Exclusive for her interview with Bob Graham and William Reilly, the co-chairmen of Barack Obama's Presidential Commission investigating the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe. Amazingly, the commission is forbidden from concluding that this type of well was too dangerous to be permitted. Here is how Chairman Graham described his brief--to "make recommendations as to what we think will be necessary for the United States to continue to have a deepwater oil drilling industry." Even in slime-ravaged Louisiana, the idea of a drilling ban seems unthinkable. NBC's Kerry Sanders quoted Bobby Jindal, the state's Republican governor: "The reality is we should not have to choose between safe, domestic production of energy and safeguarding our wildlife and our coast and our way of life."
Just because Jindal does not want to make that choice, it does not mean that he might not have to.
In all the hours of coverage of all the angles of this environmental disaster, the policy question of the wisdom of deepwater offshore drilling has been routinely underplayed. Instead, political correspondents have decided to become drama critics.
Wednesday, ABC's White House correspondent Jake Tapper covered the critique leveled at Barack Obama that his Method Acting rendition of outrage was lacking in conviction. Now CBS' Chip Reid (no link) and NBC's Chuck Todd offer their reviews. Todd referred to a "perception that he is not as engaged as he should be." Reid quoted unidentified critics as carping that "his kind of calm and methodical tone is not appropriate in a disaster like this." All three networks covered the President's self-defense in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live: "You know I am furious at this entire situation…I would love to just spend a lot of my time venting and yelling at people…Ultimately this is not about me and how angry I am."
But it is about whether deepwater drilling should be allowed to continue and Obama has refused to allow his commission even to address such a question. And CBS anchor Couric failed to challenge that limitation when Graham cited it.
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