Memo to Bob Murray: Shut Your Yap Hole

When TV camera crews and reporters beat a path to your door, it’s usually not because you just won a big lottery prize or landed in the Guinness Book of Records.

It's because something really bad has happened, and that’s why we're having to put up with a right-wing blowhard by the name of Robert Murray these days.

Murray is the owner of the mine in Crandall Canyon, Utah, where six men are trapped.

Three of the miners happen to be Mexicans, but this hasn’t stopped the feckless Murray from raving about furriners and threats to American jobs and how the government won't stay off his butt about safety concerns and how global warming is going to kill his business and how people on fixed incomes won't be able to stay warm and how blasting in the mine couldn't possibly have triggered the earthquake that trapped the miners and . . .. . .

Said the Salt Lake Tribune:

"Crisis management and public relations authorities criticized Murray's performance as 'callous,' 'damaging' and 'not very helpful' to the families of the six miners trapped underground.

" 'The families of the six trapped miners are deeply worried about the welfare of their loved ones. They need and have a right to the most credible, objective, and up-to-date information available about the status of the rescue effort'," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House labor committee. 'The news conference held this morning at the mine did not meet this standard'."

After the Sago mine disaster in West Virginia, where confusing and contradictory information was given to families and the press, Congress passed a law requiring a Mine Safety and Health Administration official to handle communications with the families, press and public, but Murray was back in front of the microphone last night.

Said James Liukaszewski, a White Plains, N.Y., crisis management firm president:

"His behavior is the beginning of blame-shifting, which causes people to dislike business leaders and to distrust those who blame others for their problems."

Murray has owned mines in six states and also has a reputation for being a Scrooge. After completing the purchase of the Utah mine last year, one of his first moves was to shut down a part of the operation, idling 114 workers less than two weeks before Christmas.

Photo by Robert Hartman/The Salt Lake Tribune