Sunday talk shows: Sarah Palin and Robert Gibbs spar over gulf oil spill
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The Sunday talks shows served up politics this morning as Sarah Palin and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs exchanged barbs, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) reaffirmed that the Obama administration offered him a job, and one Republican suggested that Rand Paul’s comments on civil rights are what happens when rookies shoot for the major league.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she remained a ‘big supporter’ of oil drilling, even as thousands of gallons of crude continue to flow into the Gulf of Mexico after the BP explosion a month ago.
Still, she said, ‘These oil companies have got to be held accountable.’ In an interview on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ Palin also suggested that the Obama administration’s response to the spill might be compromised by the president’s campaign contributions from oil companies.
Palin said she wanted to know whether ‘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.’
Gibbs, the White House press secretary, appearing on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation,’ suggested Palin do some homework.
‘I’m almost sure that the oil companies don’t consider the Obama administration a huge ally,’ Gibbs said. ‘We proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge for gasoline.’
Gibbs said: ‘My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what’s going on in and around oil drilling in this country.’
Meanwhile, the Democratic and Republican parties spent some time distancing themselves from their newly chosen Senate nominees following Tuesday’s pivotal primary elections. The suggestion by Paul, the libertarian-minded upstart who won the GOP nomination in Kentucky, that civil rights law may have overreached into private business affairs was roundly dismissed.
‘Even a very good baseball player sometimes has a hard time going from the triple-A to the major leagues,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the No. 3 in Senate Republican leadership, said on ‘Face the Nation.’
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said Paul’s ‘philosophy is misplaced in these times. I don’t think it’s where the country is right now.’ Steele, speaking on Fox, added, ‘I think in this case Rand Paul’s philosophy got in the way of reality.’
Palin, however, said the media was just out for a ‘gotcha’ moment with Paul, who has maintained that he is a supporter of civil rights.
Democrats had their own explaining to do over Richard Blumenthal, the party’s nominee for the Senate in Connecticut, who has said he served in Vietnam when he was, in fact, stateside during the war.
‘The statements were wrong,’ Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said on Fox.
And Sestak, the Democratic congressman who beat Arlen Specter for the party’s nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania, reaffirmed that the Obama administration offered him a job as his candidacy was unfolding.
‘I was offered a job,’ Sestak said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ Gibbs maintained that the talks between the White House and Sestak were not inappropriate. ‘Lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were had with Congressman Sestak,’ Gibbs said on ‘Face the Nation.’ ‘And nothing inappropriate happened.’
-- Lisa Mascaro
