"An oil spill that closed a long stretch of the lower Mississippi River on Wednesday undercut his (McCain's) message that offshore drilling was desirable and safe." Elizabeth Bumiller, New York Times, July 25.

"An oil spill on the Mississippi River made for a powerful talking point for opponents of his (Mc Cain's) drilling plan." Brian Montopoli, CBS News, July 25.

"It may not have helped things (for McCain) that a 600-foot tanker loaded with oil and a barge collided Wednesday in the Mississippi River in New Orleans, leaving a 12-mile long oil slick in the river and closing a 29-mile stretch of the river." Michael Shear, the Washington Post, July 23.

"In selling his absurd coastline drilling plan to the American people, " said Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez last week, "McCain has time and again pointed to advanced technology that would supposedly eliminate the threat of massive oil spills. ... Having to cancel your big oil drilling photo op (in Louisiana last week) because of a massive oil spill is like canceling a crime safety photo op because the house next door just got robbed. Look up 'irony' in the dictionary and you will find a description of this turn of events."

Look up "idiocy" in the dictionary and you will find Menendez's comment. Look up "jackass" and you should find the faces of all the eminent journalists quoted above from the pages of America's most eminent journals.

(Column continues below)

This writer, by the way, could smell the oil fumes from the spill from his porch. In fact, this spill hammers home the case for the Republican (and minority Democratic) case for offshore oil drilling as loudly and tightly as those prices at the pump.

If the first part of any of the above premises (that an oil tanker was involved) had been true, then the senator's and eminent journalists' deductions would have surpassed in stupidity even the ones they deducted and broadcast.

In fact, the 419,000 gallons that spilled into the Mississippi river on July 23 consisted of fuel oil (not crude oil) from a barge that picked it up from a local fuel merchant. As it happened, this fuel oil-laden barge collided with a tanker, the Tintomara, but this tanker was also not carrying crude oil. It transported styrene and biodiesel. But the Tintomara has carried (foreign) crude oil in the past and could easily carry (foreign) crude oil in the future.

The Mississippi River below and above New Orleans typically carries a heavy traffic of tankers transporting (foreign) crude oil to refineries in this area. And accidents occur. So here, I'll help you senatorial and media greenies establish the premise your sloppy research and wishful thinking caused you to botch on this spill. Here ya go … softly and right over home plate:

"An oil tanker, the Westchester, lost power and ran aground 40 miles south of New Orleans, spilling more than half a million gallons of (foreign) crude oil into the Mississippi River. The spill was the largest in U.S. waters since the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989." New Orleans Times Picayune, Nov 29, 2000.

So here's a bona-fide oil tanker, carrying bona-fide oil and causing a bona-fide oil spill, as you eminent journalists concocted last week. Well, this type of spill is the very thing that more domestic oil drilling will prevent. The transportation of foreign oil to American refineries by tankers – not the production of domestic oil, which is transported to refineries via pipeline – causes most oil spills.

Fashionable Florida, for instance, zealously prohibits offshore oil drilling but had its gorgeous "Emerald Coast" panhandle beaches soiled by an ugly oil spill in 1976. This spill, as almost all oil spills, resulted from the transportation of oil – not from the extraction of oil.

Assuming such as Hugo Chavez deign to keep selling us oil, we'll need increasingly more and we'll need to keep transporting it stateside – typically to refineries in Louisiana and Texas. This path will continue to take most of those tankers (as the one in 1976, and the one in 2000) smack in front of Florida's panhandle beaches and up the Mississippi River, past the scenic New Orleans Riverwalk. Recall the Valdez, the Cadiz, the Argo Merchant. These were all tanker spills. The production of oil is relatively clean and safe. Again, it's the transportation that presents the greatest risk.

Sen. Mc Cain's (belated) support for domestic oil exploration and production would thus help prevent such accidents as the Westchester's and the one fabricated by a wishful mainstream media and Sen. Menendez about the Tintomara.

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Humberto Fontova is the author of four books including "Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who idolize Him" and "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant.: Visit Fontova's website.