Zakaria on Oil Spill Coverage

Fareed Zakaria writes in Newsweek that media coverage of White House response to the Gulf oil spill has been absurd.

I agree with virtually everyone out there who’s complaining on camera and in print that our response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been just terrible. Except that by “our” I don’t mean the government’s or the country’s but ours—the media’s. Reporting on a massive technological breakdown that is having huge environmental consequences, our focus over the last week has been on whether the president is offering enough public displays of emotion?

Have we gone mad? We face monumental engineering challenges: to plug a hole in the deep sea, separate oil from water, clean up the coastline, and restore the gulf. But let’s forget about talking to experts and seeking technical solutions. That’s for nerds. Let’s put on battle fatigues and kick some butt. Commentators have been begging for some symbol of Obama’s resolve, as when George W. Bush stood at the World Trade Center site after 9/11 and promised revenge for the attacks. If the president were to invade another country, would that show he cared?

--Ballard Burgher