stupid and untrue

Palin claims that Netherlands and Norway can’t get their calls returned on the oil spill.

To respond to President Obama’s first Oval Office address, Fox News last night turned to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, whom Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) once said “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.” When asked about how to stop the leaking oil well, Palin said that the United States needs to accept more assistance from foreign governments:

O’REILLY: Do you know how to stop it?

PALIN: Well, then what the federal government should have done was accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans who have had solutions –

O’REILLY: Who?

PALIN: — that they wanted presented.

O’REILLY: Who?

PALIN: They can’t even get a phone call returned, Bill. The Dutch. They are known, and the Norwegians. They are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills. They offered to help and, yet, no, they too, with a proverbial can’t even get a phone call back. That is what the Norwegians are telling us, and the Dutch are telling us, and then the entrepreneurial Americans.

While it is true that many observers have criticized the administration for being too slow to accept some offers of assistance, Palin is simply wrong that no one is returning calls from “the Dutch” and “the Norwegians.” From Monday’s Washington Post:

In late May, the administration accepted Mexico’s offer of two skimmers and 13,779 feet of boom; a Dutch offer of three sets of Koseq sweeping arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil; and eight skimming systems offered by Norway.

(Think Progress)