By Denise Tessier

The word “venerable” traditionally has been ascribed to the Associated Press.

Yet, that’s not what comes to mind when reading the front page of today’s Albuquerque Journal.

In an “Analysis” piece on Page One this morning, an AP writer stretches to make a case for criticizing the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf Coast oil catastrophe, saying administration officials “invite judgment” when claiming they responded 100 percent from Day One. The piece says the administration’s recent “rhetoric” reflects its “determination to be seen as responsive from the get-go and to squelch comparisons to the Bush administration’s slow-footed response to Hurricane Katrina.”

News flash to the Albuquerque Journal: Being slow on rhetoric does not in any way approach the life-and-death seriousness of being slow in responding to the needs of homeless hurricane victims stranded for days in a sports stadium without water and basic toilet facilities.

Yet, that’s how the Albuquerque Journal plays this piece by Erica Werner, which you can read here as an Atlanta Journal Constitution “Spin Meter” feature. Rather than running the piece on an inside page as a sidebar to a legitimate news follow-up on the spill, the Albuquerque Journal diverts its most valuable real estate – the front page — to this “analysis,” and caps with this sensational headline: “Was the Administration There From day One? Maybe Not.”

While the “analysis” focuses on the Obama administration, it does contain a nugget of important information: That is, that the federal Oil Pollution Act, enacted 20 years ago in the wake of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill, makes the oil company BP responsible for clean-up costs related to the current catastrophe, but caps its liability in terms of the lost wages, shortened fishing season and tourism setbacks caused by the spill.

It’s possible this information is what led Journal editors to decide the piece worthy of Page One. But the liability issue plays a supporting role to the lead focus on Obama “rhetoric.” Because of the story’s focus, it was a poor placement choice on the part of the Journal, and an even worse headline choice.

After years of carrying water for the oil industry in both editorials and flawed opinion pieces, it is too much to expect the Journal to run a front-page analysis critical of the industry.

Yet that would be more appropriate in this instance.

The outrage – and there should be outrage by the Journal on behalf of its readers– should not be over whether the Obama Administration is massaging its message, but rather over the oil-industry friendliness by Congress and previous administrations that led us to this catastrope. The focus now should be on what is being done to revise the federal Oil Pollution Act, enacted in 1990 after Valdez, in order to remove the cap that makes polluters like BP responsible for the devastating effects the spill has inflicted on the Gulf Coast economy.

The Obama administration should be fully engaged in ensuring taxpayers won’t foot the bill for this, as Werner’s article implies, and that means revising this act. And the Journal should editorialize its support for such revision if and when any obstructionists in Congress try to impede efforts to raise the liability cap. Already, a bill to raise the cap to $10 billion has been proposed by three Democratic senators and, according to Werner, has the president’s support.

If greater liability provisions had been in the 1990 law, perhaps BP would have thought it prudent to install a $500,000 shut-off valve upfront rather than face the catastrophic costs of negligence later.

The Journal should try harder to keep the focus of the outrage – and of its front page – on what really matters.