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DRAMATIC BROADENING OBSERVED

A Texan oil dude has been charged over oil-for-food:

Dramatically broadening the scandal surrounding the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, federal authorities in New York today charged David B. Chalmers, a Houston oil trader, and his company, Bayoil, with making millions of dollars in illegal kickback payments to Iraq while trading oil under the program.

InstaPundit has a useful wrap-up, including this, from an anonymous reader:

Now that the MSM can write about an TEXAS based OIL company owned by an AMERICAN, it will be saturation bombing time for them. I work for an MSM company, and I can see the froth beginning to churn.

Indeedy. Reader Larry sent word this morning that Triple J’s 8am news ran an item on this exciting new oil-for-food angle:

No mention of the subject for weeks (or ever). All changes now that a US firm is named.

He’s right; suddenly the ABC can’t run enough oil-for-food stories. 

UPDATE. Hank Reardon in comments:

Convenient timing for the ABC to see the error of their ways and give this scandal some coverage. I only recently received a response from the ABC’s Denise Musto, Audience and Consumer Affairs Manager to confirm that my complaint of lack of coverage on this issue had been upheld in relation to 7:30 Report and Lateline.

UPDATE II. Brendan Loy notes:

The U.N. oil-for-food scandal gets the buried-on-Page-A22 treatment for months ... and then a Texas oilman is indicted, and suddenly it’s the top story in the New York Times. Sheesh.

As Brendan writes: “Welcome to the party, folks. This is actually one of the biggest scandals in world history ... glad to have you aboard.” The Sydney Morning Herald also expresses unusual interest.

Posted by Tim B. on 04/15/2005 at 01:37 AM
  1. What do you mean, that Texas oil man’s a Democrat?  Nothing to see here, move along…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 04 15 at 10:32 AM • permalink

  2. Convenient timing for the ABC to see the error of their ways and give this scandal some coverage.
    I only recently received a response from the ABC’s Denise Musto, Audience and Consumer Affairs Manager to confirm that my complaint of lack of coverage on this issue had been upheld in relation to 7:30 Report and Lateline. I’ll eagerly await its publication in their Annual Report, only problem is that it won’t appear as an upheld complaint relating to bias but one of “not enough coverage”. We all know where it should be recorded.

    Posted by Hank Reardon on 2005 04 15 at 11:07 AM • permalink

  3. It will be interesting to see if any nation other than the US bothers to arrest anyone.

    Europe might see corruption on this scale as a real accomplishment. Maybe they will give out an award: and for the largest kickback ever given to a European backstabbing thieve the award goes to….....

    Posted by terryelee on 2005 04 15 at 09:22 PM • permalink

  4. All you Leftists out there—this is how greedy capitalists operate ... they take the path of least resistance, in stark contrast to the actions taken by the Bush/Blair/Howard administrations in Iraq.

    So much for the “war for OIL” meme ... for if our leaders were infected with the greed the Left accused them of, they wouldn’t have started a war that would upset the Crude-for-Food gravy train.

    They’d have instead accepted your praise as “men of peace”, as they joined the gravy train, milked Iraq dry, and starved her people to death ...

    ... either that, or they would have stayed there in 1991.

    Posted by Rich Casebolt on 2005 04 15 at 09:42 PM • permalink

  5. ABSO-FUCKIN-LUTELY!!!
    If a story can’t be EXPLOITED to whack America with, then it’s ignored!
    See 2004 world’s worst humanitarian crisis according to the U.N., in Darfur, 180,000 dead in 18 months!
    See 2005 world’s worst humanitarian crisis according to the U.N., in the Democratic Republic of Congo, up to a 1000 killed every day! No U.S. angle, so the so-called ‘bleeding hearts’ at the ABC and SBS and the like turn their back on it!
    In Iraq every stubbed toe makes the news NOW, but when incompetent, corrupt U.N. sanctions cost the lives of hundreds of thousands in that country…NOTHING!!! NOW, that disastrous period in Iraq’s history is continually and coldly referred to on the ABC, as “successful containment”.
    There obviously ISN’T a U.S. contingent of U.N. “peace-keeping” troops sexually assaulting women and RAPING CHILDREN or, believe me, we would have heard all about it by now!!!

    Posted by Brian on 2005 04 15 at 10:23 PM • permalink

  6. Australia Slipping ?

    U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday the United States and Britain bore part of the blame in the Iraq oil-for-food debacle

    Posted by guinsPen on 2005 04 16 at 10:44 AM • permalink

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