Time Magazine on the Gulf Oil Spill: "Has the Environmental Damage been exaggerated?"

Time Magazine in its latest issues gives Rush Limbaugh credit for being to first to state that the dangers of the Gulf Oil Spill have been gravely overstated.  Interesting...

President Obama has called the BP oil spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," and so has just about everyone else. Green groups are sounding alarms about the "catastrophe along the Gulf Coast," while CBS, Fox and MSNBC are all slapping "Disaster in the Gulf" chyrons on their spill-related news. Even BP fall guy Tony Hayward, after some early happy talk, admitted that the spill was an "environmental catastrophe." The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare voice arguing that the spill — he calls it "the leak" — is anything less than an ecological calamity, scoffing at the avalanche of end-is-nigh eco-hype.
Well, Limbaugh has a point. The Deepwater Horizon explosion was an awful tragedy for the 11 workers who died on the rig, and it's no leak; it's the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. It's also inflicting serious economic and psychological damage on coastal communities that depend on tourism, fishing and drilling. But so far — while it's important to acknowledge that the long-term potential danger is simply unknowable for an underwater event that took place just three months ago — it does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage. "The impacts have been much, much less than everyone feared," says geochemist Jacqueline Michel, a federal contractor who is coordinating shoreline assessments in Louisiana.  Read the rest of the article here.

Of course Rush himself had plenty to say about this.  On today's show he said

RUSH: You know, there's another reason why the left is angry out there about this oil spill.  Obama did not lift a finger to help.  The left is looking at this, the environmentalist wackos, as such a blown opportunity.  He did nothing -- sat around for how many days, 58, 60 days? -- and did diddly-squat.  God took over. Obama cannot raise the seas, he cannot lower the seas, he cannot clean up the seas. He cannot get rid of the oil.  I have the guts to report it. So all they can do -- and don't be surprised if this happens. Don't be surprised if the partisan political operatives in the so-called media, the Fake Media, say, "Well, of course Obama didn't do anything.  He knew that this would take care of itself on its own."

No, no, no! We're not going to let 'em get away with that because it wasn't long ago -- how long ago was it? -- that Obama went on TV and said he was in there shaving one morning (which he has to do, I understand, once a week) and his little girl came in and said (child voice), "Daddy? Daddy? Did you plug the leak yet, daddy? Did you plug the hole?" So when the Fake Media comes around and says, "Obama knew it was going to take care of itself and that's why he wasn't in a panic." No, no, no, no.  Obama's family was panicking over whether or not he'd plugged the hole yet.  Very, very simple.  During the break I went back to the El Rushbo Stack of Stuff at my website. This is from my website Quick Hits page back on May 18th.  The headline was "Hayward Got Bashed for Telling the Truth."

This is what I said on this program back on May 18th: "I saw on television today the CEO of [BP].  I forget his name but he's a doctor, a Ph.D. doctor.  This guy is really in for it.  I don't know... This guy obviously has not been trained about how to deal with the media in this era, because he told the truth.  He said (paraphrased), 'Come on. Do not worry. This is not heavy crude like came out of the Exxon Valdez.' He said, 'When you look at the total water volume of the Gulf of Mexico, compared to what's leaking from this oil well, it's nothing."  Now, that's my word; he didn't say 'nothing,' but he said, 'This is not oil. It's not even going to kill marine life. They'll adapt to it.  The marine life would not be able to adapt to heavy oil but this is light sweet oil and compared to the entire water volume of the Gulf, why, this is like raindrops in the ocean.'"

"He's a geologist.  I know he's a geologist, but this guy is crucified now," I said back on May 18th when he said this.  I continued by saying, "I just learned that the British Petroleum CEO's name is Dr. Tony Hayward.  Dr. Hayward gained a first-class geology degree and a Ph.D. from Edinburgh University at the age of 22, but what does he know?  He's the [BP] CEO who put in perspective the amount of oil that's coming out of that leak compared to the entire water volume of the Gulf of Mexico.  He would know much more than these politicians, of course, and yet the Obama [regime] is now having more investigations, and Ken Salazar's come out, 'You know, we failed.'  Somebody call Obama and say a member of his regime is using the word 'fail.'" So the point is Hayward was right just like I was.  Now he's been forced out of a job.  He was attacked unmercifully and he has been forced from his job, all because he was right.  He didn't show sufficient compassion. He didn't show sufficient empathy, didn't show sufficient understanding.  So he's gone.  He's literally been dispatched to Siberia, and he was right.  He put it in perspective.