Various people have asked me recently why I pay attention to Fox News wingnuts and Sarah Palin. If no one cared about what they had to say, I wouldn't either. But they have huge audiences and they're injecting stupid into our political discourse every day -- to millions of people who drink it up.
Here's Hannity repeating Palin's claim that environmentalists caused the oil spill by forcing Big Oil move away from shallower waters. Somehow.
No one put a gun to BP's corporate head and forced its platforms into deep water. They set up shop at the Macondo prospect because, you know, there's oil there. Hannity, you faker bitch. Here's the NOAA map again showing the locations of more than 3,000 other Gulf coast oil rigs -- most of which are in shallow water.
In Congress, meanwhile, Chuck Grassley thinks we should use beer to clean up the spill. As Jon Stewart said last night, "We're fucked."
How about this. If environmentalists have so much power to influence the location of oil rigs, why don't we use our considerable heft to move a few rigs next to Hannity's house. Then spill away!