Justice department opens investigation into gulf oil spill. (Yea!) TV screen shows an angry President Obama giving a press conference. (Yes!!)  But what does the crawler across the bottom of the screen say?  “Blame Game Intensifies”

Blame game intensifies…  Oh, I thought something important was happening.  Turns out it's just a game – nothing to bother with.  No need to worry about it or follow along with the facts or anything because it's really nothing more than a blame game…  Obama is just having a fun time finger-pointing because that's the kind of petty, small person he is, obviously…   He's just playing around. 

A Justice Department investigation into the causes of the worst environmental disaster in history, the gift that just keeps on giving oil and will probably still be giving oil when we get to August (which probably means August of 2011), is put forth by our corporate media as merely part of something called the “blame game.”

That's right.  President Obama is just looking for someone to blame!  Implication being that there's no one to blame.   Further implication being that it was only an accident, no one's fault, couldn't have been predicted or prevented, and now there's just a lot of political squabbling over whose fault it is, so what's the point, just tune it out, pay no attention.

What channel did I see this on?  Fox News?  Right-wing media station?  No.  The Weather Channel.
And not just the Weather Channel.  All the channels.  And the print media too.  And yes, the “liberal” media.  

The “blame game” talking point is how the corporate media tells us to pay no attention to the President's attempts to get to the truth about the causes of the oil spill.  (It's just a blame game). 
In this way, the corporate media accomplishes 2 things:  (1) It creates the false impression that it is unclear who is at fault. This is an important part of the strategy because it makes it so we can argue about it endlessly, like the Obama birth certificate and global warming. (2) It trivializes whatever the investigation concludes about whose fault it is.  If despite the media's best efforts at obfuscation, there is in fact some or many to be held accountable, the media have made sure that when all is said and done, the investigation's conclusion will be rendered meaningless, because they have already identified the investigation as (all together now) just a blame game.  It is the exact same method the corporate media used when they (through endless repetition) successfully reduced Howard Dean to a mere scream.

Am I a conspiracy theorist? Yes. I do not believe it to be a coincidence that every news outlet will use the phrase “blame game” over and over. A simple google search reveals that virtually everybody, liberal, moderate or conservative has reported on the spill investigation using the term “blame-game,” and “finger-pointing” – a “finger-pointing bonanza,” according to WaPo. PBS is guilty.  MSNBC, CBS, Time, Salon, Reuters, NPR…and on and on.

They will wrap their reporting in a political framework – is this a winner or loser for Obama, for Democrats, how will it affect the November elections?  

President Obama and the American people will get no help from the corporate media in getting a true and honest discussion of the causes and consequences of the spill before the nation. They will treat the issue as if it were petty gossip, behaving no differently than when they are reporting on Sarah Palin's wardrobe.

Investigating the facts of the disaster should be called “determining accountability.”  But that would tend to lead us to actual conclusions (which would be bad for corporate America).  Better to make sure we all end up feeling frustrated, lost and hopeless within the mythical, media-created “blame game.”  

I like this frame: “Despite Being Endlessly Criticized and Compared to George W. Bush, Obama Is Still Doing Everything He Possibly Can to Help Save America and Deal With the Oil Spill” or “President Obama Making Heroic Effort to Single-Handedly Save Country from Corporate-Friendly Policies of Last 30 Years With No Help Whatsoever.”

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