Sabotage! Conspiracy! And Other Ways to Spin the Oil Spill

It began with Rush Limbaugh, who surmised a motive: “[W]hat better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I’m just noting the timing here,” Limbaugh said, vaguely suggesting that supporters of cap-and-trade, or maybe the Obama administration, had been responsible.

“We’re seeing the Rahm Emanuel rule number one taking effect”–never wasting a crisis–suggested former FEMA Director Michael Brown, a man of irreproachable credibility on the matter of disasters in the Gulf. The administration is exploiting the spill as an opportunity to “shut down offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico,” Brown told, Chris Matthews, who in turn told Brown he sounded “crazy.”

That Atlantic