Former Governor Sarah Palin was on Fox News Sunday and Chris Wallace brought up the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill. I’ve mentioned that the Obama administration is just a complicit in this disaster even though the Media has largely been whitewashing this. Governor Palin highlighted the connection between BP and President Obama that is largely being ignored.
WALLACE: Let’s turn to another subject. Millions of gallons of oil are continuing to spill into the Gulf of Mexico. You, of course, are a big supporter of offshore drilling. You popularized the phrase "drill, baby, drill." Does this disaster give you any pause, Governor?
PALIN: I am a big supporter of domestic extraction of the resources that we are so reliant on, versus relying on foreign sources of energy, relying and beholden upon regimes that can use energy as a weapon and have less stringent environmental standards than we have. I am still a strong supporter of domestic energy supplies being extracted. (my note – see her op/ed on this topic here)
Having said that, these oil companies have got to be held accountable when there is any kind of lax and preventative measures to result in a tragedy like we’re seeing right now in the gulf.
Alaska has been through that. I’ve live and worked through that Exxon Valdez oil spill. I know what it takes to hold these oil companies accountable, and we need to see more of that. But we are still reliant on petroleum products and oil and gas.
And I’m a supporter of offshore drilling but also onshore drilling. Maybe this is a lesson, too, for those who oppose safe, domestic supplies being extracted on our shores and on the land, like in ANWR and NPRA, other areas of Alaska. Let us drill there where it is even safer than way offshore.
WALLACE: Governor, I want to pick up on the point that you just made, which is that you did, as governor of Alaska, go after oil companies, including B.P. in several cases. How do you think the Obama administration has handled the oil spill so far?
PALIN: Well, I think that there is perhaps a hesitancy to — I don’t really know how to put this, Chris, except to say that the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now — I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration.
If there’s any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico — now, if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn’t received as much support even as President Obama has from B.P. and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions why the administration didn’t get in there, didn’t get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don’t happen.
There is certainly a double standard, and while there is plenty of blame to go around, let’s not let the Obama administration off the hook as well. While certainly Republicans have received money from oil companies, out of the last 20 years BP has given President Obama the most.