One of the things we hear a lot from the left, everywhere from Code Pink to the environmentalists, is references of the most ominous description in reference to “Big Oil”.

Evil, Profits at Any Price, Corrupt and Corrupting, enemy-of-the-planet, (Big) Oil.

Naturally, these opponents of that nasty menace to all that is “nice” and all that is “right” in the world are “progressives”, so there’s no way there could be any kind of hypocrisy afoot within their ranks, no way!

Then how could this be?

British Petroleum’s (BP) reputation has been marred by the April oil rig explosion and subsequent oil spill which is still gushing more than 40 days later. But according to The Washington Post, the reputation of some left-wing environmental groups has also been polluted by the incident.

“[T]he Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years,” Joe Stephens wrote for the Post May 24.

It’s not just Nature Conservancy either, the Post found $2 million in donations to Conservation International and relationships between BP and other lefty activist groups Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Sierra Club and Audubon.

So once again, over there on the left, we learn that lucre can, and quite easily at that, replace “convictions”. Who’d have suspected?

“The crude emanating from BP’s well threatens to befoul a number of alliances between energy conglomerates and environmental nonprofits. At least one group, Conservation International, acknowledges that it is reassessing its ties to the oil company, with an eye toward protecting its reputation,” the Post said.

Conservation International is “reassessing its ties,” is it?, “with an eye toward protecting its reputation.”

Okey dokey, so what we may infer from this is that even though these leftist organizations rail against oil giants 24/7, some bribery doesn’t come amiss now and then, and let’s not play like “progressives” and call it anything else, as though gentle phraseology takes the harshness out of a harsh deed.

“Hey, you adorable little environmentalists, we at Big Oil really approve of your cause, in fact we love your cause so much that we’re bribing your corrupt liberal asses contributing ten million smackeroos to your cause — to you — and as a gift, bestowing upon you these hundreds of acres of prime virgin land that we will never drill on”.”

“That’s just great, sugarplum, y’all sweeties, you, and between you and me, we’re gonna misplace all the material we were gonna use to campaign against your company, that is, we were ’til we realized what a generous buncha’ cutiepies y’all really are.” (fluttering eyebrows).

So much for “progressives’” convictions.

This was front page news at The Post on May 24, but received only silence from other mainstream media outlets including the three broadcast networks. Even after the oil spill, when the networks interviewed experts from two of the groups that had partnered with BP, reporters failed to make the connection. In the past, the research of conservative organizations has been undermined by reporters for such corporate contributions.

So much for “honesty in the media”.

The Story’s Here.