About a month ago, as the debate over coastal drilling began in earnest, Dick Cheney pushed the rhetorical envelope a bit, telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that “oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. We’re not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government … Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply. Yet Congress has said … no to drilling off Florida.”
It has been a common Republican talking point, but it’s patently false — the Chinese are not drilling off Cuba’s coasts. The day after Cheney made the bogus claim, the V.P.’s office acknowledged that he was mistaken.
And yet, for some reason, high-profile Republicans can’t stop repeating the claim that’s already been debunked. Maybe conservatives have decided that they can’t win a debate on energy policy on the merits, so misleading people about communists stealing our oil is the better strategy. Here’s failed presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani talking to CNN’s resident right-winger, Glenn Beck, Wednesday night:
Download | Play 
Download | Play (h/t Heather)
Giuliani: “You look at Cuba. Cuba is going to allow China to drill for oil within 80 miles of Florida. And Florida had a 300-mile limit. So in essence, we have China drilling for American oil.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but it almost seems as if high-profile Republicans have been repeating the false claim more now that it has been debunked.
Looks like even Senator Norm Coleman is getting in on the fun.
TPM has been keeping track of all the examples, and there are some real doozies in there. Some Republicans have altered the myth a little — I think Giuliani is the first to suggest that the Cubans and the Chinese are taking our oil — but they’re all repeating a charge that isn’t remotely true. Either they don’t know what they’re talking about, or they know the claim is false and repeat it anyway. At this point, it’s hard to know which is the case.
Filed Under: Environment
Tags: Energy Security, Lies, Oil Drilling, Rudy Giuliani
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They’re counting on the following responses from the American public:
1. See! Toldja them Chinks are in league with Fidel! Friggin’ MSM!
2. But what if it’s TRUE? We don’t want proof to come in the form of an oil rig …
3. Aaaaaaah! It’s TERRORISTS! We have to protect ourselves!
Truth? Truth was mugged and left to die in an alleyway on 9/11 …
If you repeat the lie often enough the lie becomes the truth.
Not scary enough, Rudy. Throw in a few ‘9-11’s next time. Oh, and the communist Chinese oil workers - how about GAY communist Chinese swarming off of the coast of Florida? Drilling OUR oil, clad in cut off jeans and tank tops, with techno music pulsating in the background. And once they’ve taken our oil - they’re coming ashore - for our GUNS!
So is Giuliani on the Exxon payroll too?
Ron @ 2:
Got to catapult that propaganda.
Is anyone still listening to this guy? Good God, go away.
What the hell is Cuba doing in our waters?? Isn’t this the more important question? Of course Giuliani drops the ball on this international power play by Cuba. Putting themselves in our waters. Damn it. This makes me bitter.
Shadowgm Hussein @ 1:
Too funny!
Figures TRudy made this comment on the Glenn Dreck Show. Turds of a feather…
THE __________ ARE COMING TO TAKE OUR ___________.
A. Terrorists, Freedoms
B. Chinese, Oil
C. Immigrants, Jobs
D. Gays, Traditions
E. All of the Above
(I left the Martians and the Zombies out, but they’re on the list the moment they start conspiring with Cuba.)
Maybe Chinese and Cubans are drilling
Floridian whores
Do they have any any younger than 55?
I can’t drill 55!!!
the gop does not know the truth.
it’s unimaginable that an entire party
and especially bush and cheney
are nothing more than a bunch of
F#CKING LIARS.
is this the new
conservative christianass-suckers ball way of holding onto
the twice stolen office in the executive branch?
The wingnuts might want to be careful what they say or the Chinese just might cut off their allowance.
See .. the high oil proces are the fault of the Democratic Congress ..
Those dam Dems won’t let us extract the few more drops of oil we know are there ..
blah blah blah ..
Hidden message??
“It’s not the republican bush cheney administration’s FAULT that oil prices have gone threw the roof with no end in sight ..
“It’s not the War in Iraq ..
“It’s not the unregulated commodities trading ..
“It’s not the failure to find alternative energy solutions ..
“It’s not the MASSIVE debt to China ..
“It’s not because our manufacturing base in bankrupt ..
“IT’S NOT THE REPUBLICAN’S FAULT.”
.
.
.
.
got it?
Wasn’t that the basis of a Simpson’s episode? Is FOX now peddling storylines from cartoons?
Do you really think the Republicans would let something like “facts” get in they way of their twisted rhetoric?
Considering that the shortest distance between Cuba and FL is 90 miles, and the distance from Miami to Havana is 228 miles, I find it very very very hard to believe that Florida ever had a 300 mile limit.
Blue Buddha @ 17:
Cuba belongs to Florida.
You didn’t know that?
MountainMan23 @ 14:
Its not the economy.
Its not the the world’s hatred towards us.
Its not the jobs.
Its not the shrinking middle class.
the life lessons of caddyshack………..
[to Ty, about Judge Smails] If he bothers you, I’ll take care of him. What you’ve got to do is cut the hamstring on the back of his leg right at the bottom. He’ll never play golf again, because his weight displacement goes back, all his weight is on his right foot, and he’ll push everything off to the right. He’ll never come through on anything. He’ll quit the game.
No one is allowed to be more batshit crazy than Rudy. If there are offshore claims by both Cuba and the USA it is normal to split the difference regarding the open ocean between the two. Rudy would appear to be claiming Cuba itself, as well as Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and more than a few other island nations.
MountainMan23 @ 18:
Well, if the oil under Cuba belongs to Florida it sure means that Cuba belongs to Florida. “In essence.” Time to invade!
There is nothing “hard” about it at all. They know the truth and are LIARS! They know Wolf or Hannity or O’liely aren’t going to call them out. They get called out on sights like this and that’s fine with them. We aren’t the target for these co-ordinated lies. It’s for their base of low information, mouth breathing, buy it like it’s two-for-one, idiots. You know, the 28%’ers, which is a depressingly large number.
Global Citizen @ 21:
Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and more than a few other island nations?
Oh my. This is going to get ugly fast. Do you see how these Republicans do not see the repercussions of their small talk. Now Rudy has Florida in a war with half the Caribbean. The fucker.
This isn’t even the whole lie (though Giuliani hints at it).
I saw a rant on a financial website last week that accused the Chinese of “slant drilling” from Cuba’s coastal waters all the way across the Gulf to US territory, stealing US oil.
It is not physically possible to drill underground for 50 - 100 miles, or even a small fraction of that distance. These people are idiots.
They said it more than three times. That makes it true.
I have no doubt they’ll have as much luck reversing this lie as the Obama campaign has had stopping that ’secret muslim’ rumor.
Linkie no workie
Like their role model Goebbels, the “big lie” technique is still a Faux News / Bush league favorite. It isn’t designed to be believed, as many commenters above have pointed out. It’s intended to implant the “drilling offshore will fix it” deep in the TV news viewer’s emotions, where cognition studies say it’ll start making them turn their backs on reality.
Meanwhile, the automakers keep saying they just can’t make money selling small fuel-efficient cars while Honda was the only auto maker showing a sales increase (because they made small, fuel-efficient cars). The sad thing is, Detroit really believes small, fuel-efficient cars = the Doom That Came to Sarnath.
i can’t bring myself to watch the video….i can’t stand these two. the both of them are assholes. beck has all the answers and giuliani….opportunistic
According to the linked McClatchy article:
“Cuba’s state oil company, Cupet, has issued exploration contracts to companies from India, Canada, Spain, Malaysia and Norway, according to diplomats.”
I don’t think those companies plan to explore for oil only to satisfy their curiosity. Rather, there is a good chance that oil rigs will spring up within a hundred miles or so off Florida in the not so distant future. Isn’t that something we should be worried about?
Guliani is an idiot. That ain’t news. But his point, that more offshore drilling is likely, is news. The post implies otherwise. In fact, if I had only heard Rudy’s blather I would be better informed than if I had only read this post (the comical confusion over territorial waters and their extents not withstanding.)
joeedugan @ 3:
but i have a chinese made ak47 , will they take that too? the bastards!
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Hello,
Its Rudee Ghouliani, who gives a flying fck WHAT he says. He is done, finito, finis. Bye, bye rudee.
Stick a fork in him boys.
Did anyone watch that video? I can’t listen to either of those assholes alone, both at the same time would cause me to projectile vomit all over my beautiful Mac,…
I’d like to know more about the oil recently found in North Dakota: http://minnesota.publicradio.o.....10/ndoil/.
.. maybe it’s a good thing the link is broke ..
Essentially, Republicans are bullies. They’re daring us to call them liars.
Ok - YOU’RE A BUNCH OF LIARS.
That wasn’t so hard.
Fact free rhetoric on CNN, What a ToolFest!
The truth murdered on national TV
The Exxon has been drilling us,in the ASS.That is not a myth my friends.
CNN stands for Crappy News Network.Glen Beck is German for,man who likes drag queens.
Show me the money, Giuliani. I wanna see an oil platform 60 miles off the southern Florida coast. Prove it or shut up.
Ron @ 2:
This is part and parcel of how modern Republicans campaign. They parrot with remarkable discipline.
It does not matter how clearly or how often a half-truth or an outright lie is debunked. The Republican of the day will simply repeat the lie as though its rebuttal has never been uttered. They’re so good at it, it merits study. What actually goes on in their heads? Not the top people who orchestrate the talking points, but the seemingly infinite number of parrots they have on talk radio and television.
Once they had an army of disciplined parrots impervious to reality, they began playing the ref — they went after the media, calling it liberal and biased. The “liberal media” meme itself then became one of their parroted lies. The result? We all know it — in order to appear neutral, the media refrains from being objective. Ultimately, we’re sinking into a world where major news-people no longer subscribe to the idea of an objective truth — there’s only a balanced platform for all “opinions.” (Except on conservative media, where, of course, they simply parrot talking points.)
The members of the Bush Administration simply took the next step in our grand descent. They didn’t simply campaign on lies and half-truths. They governed on lies and half-truths. Enough of them, including the big schmuck at the top, believe their nonsense, and since there’s no objective reality anyway, they claim with straight faces that everything is dandy, regardless of how badly they fuck up.
If the transformation of John McCain from conservative-with-reputation-for-being-maverick to sheerly-contradictory-babbling-fool-with-no-discerable-beliefs is any indication, any Republican influence on government at this point threatens to complete a bridge to 1984: No reality but what Big Brother tells you, which can change at any instant, but still demand your belief.
Anyone really surprised that Captain 9/11 can parrot the China-drilling-off-Cuba assertion? If it feels true, or will help get them elected, it is true. And that’s that.
China is drinking our milkshake! They’re drinking it up!
Guilliani is a De-Bunk-O artist.
Yup, Giuliani’s a liar all right. It became obvious during the Republican Convention when he got up and tried to convince us all that, on 9-11 when he watched people jump to their deaths out of the wrecked towers, his main thought was, “Thank God George Bush is our president!” Yeah, sure. If he can lie about the worst day in his city’s history to score a cheap political point for the worst president in history, he can lie about anything.
More blathering from a power-mongering, self-reverential, neo-con bagman and shill who has the morals of an alley cat. And the balls.
Rudy is just mad that we have been letting Iraq drill our oil all these years.
WTF??
I mean Jeebus on a pogo stick. Everyone knows this is bullshit, I KNEW it was bullshit the second that I heard it.
The only thing I can gather is that there are enough stupid fucks and people that don’t pay attention, that they will believe it..
Karen @ 42: