Karl Rove to Blame for Utah Mine Disaster?

Arianna Huffington has penned an editorial on her widely read blog that outlines where the blame for the disaster at Utah's Crandall Canyon mine lays. She places the blame squarely at the feet of Karl Rove. In her "follow-the-dots" editorial she points out that Rove's "uber alles" (above everything else) political strategy is responsible for the appointment to the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration of Richard Stickler, who she claims failed to adequately protect the safety interests of miners. Since Stickler was appointed by Bush and Rove counseled Bush about political appointees, the fault for the disaster rests with Rove and the Republicans.

She also cites dollar contributions to the Republican Party by coal mining interests as the cause because the coal mining leadership according to the article was not interested in investing in mine safety. She points out correctly that since 2000 over 88% of the dollars donated from coal mining interests have gone to Republicans. Actually, the coal mining industry has contributed the majority of their political donations to Republicans since 1990.

Is it possible that one can simply analyze political contributions and then blame any disaster on those that received donations from an offending interest. If we simply follow the money can we find out who is responsible for the bridge collapse in Minnesota or the hurricane disaster in New Orleans? How about car accidents or tragedies that strike children? Tragedies happen. In hindsight one can generally fix blame. Hopefully, in the future we can prevent mine cave-ins, bridge collapses, hurricanes, car accidents and the myriad of disasters that confront us as we move through life. Huffington may be able to shed some light on this disaster or others still unknown, but blaming Karl Rove is hardly the answer. Is Huffington interested in mine safety or does she have another agenda?

In 2006, the Sago Mine in West Virgina experienced an accident that cost the lives of 12 miners. Also in 2006, Senator Byrd (D-WV) received the 5^th largest contribution from coal mining interests to an individual candidate. Using Huffington's logic we can clearly see that Byrd is probably responsible.

Can one apply the Huffington "leap of logic" to disasters that happened during Democratic administrations? Clearly, Huffington's agenda is to castigate whenever possible.

One can only hope that readers of such posts are able to critically analyze what is being said and to arrive at an independent evaluation of the logic contained in an editorial. Pages of comments from readers indicate that most buy into Huffington's conclusions. That's sad, but it is what makes our freedom of expression so interesting. One does not have to think before writing anything and many readers will adopt the thinking or argument without question.

One does not have to be on the left or right, Republican or Democrat to recognize statements that fail to pass the muster of logic.