Bob Murray: Mine Owner, Lightning Rod, "a face people want to spit on" [View All]

NYT: August 10, 2007
Bob Murray: Mine Owner and Lightning Rod
By Patrick J. Lyons

Outside the coal mining industry or Republican political circles, not many people would have had much reason to know who Bob Murray was before this week. Now, as the head of the company that co-owns and operates the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, where six miners have been trapped by a collapse since early Monday morning, Mr. Murray is the nationally known face of the drama — a face that a remarkable number of people seem to want to spit on.

Mr. Murray captured the country’s attention beginning with his combative news conference at the mine on Tuesday, when he insisted that an earthquake had caused the collapse in the mine (many scientists say it was the collapse that caused the earth to tremble), and lashed out at the news media, labor organizers, environmentalists and federal regulators....

Since then, as drilling rigs have bored their way down to where rescuers hope the miners may still be alive, Mr. Murray has become the lightning rod for a storm of blogospheric vitriol. All manner of people seem to hate the guy, what he does and what he stands for, and want to tell the world while he is still under the klieg lights.

Post titles like these almost tell the story by themselves: “Bob Murray — Mine Swine”; “Robert Murray: Sociopath”; “The Worst Man in Utah.”

But many others leave off the insulting headlines and take a bit more measured, though still highly critical, view of Mr. Murray, especially regarding his company’s labor practices, which have annoyed labor activists and the political left for years. Thudfactor, a liberal blog, is one of many that take Mr. Murray to task over safety issues. Crooks and Liars attacks Mr. Murray’s criticism of efforts in Congress to minimize global warming; Chesapeake Climate paints his defense of coal as alarmist, and Firedoglake sarcastically paints him an apologist for greed.

Meanwhile, some bloggers of a more conservative bent are sticking up for some of Mr. Murray’s views and lambasting his liberal antagonists and the media coverage, though not always leaping to defend the man himself. In fact, Mr. Murray has drawn a bit of fire from the right, notably from the editorial page of The Salt Lake Tribune, which described him as “lacking any apparent sense of propriety” and urged him to “show some respect.”...

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/bob-murray-mine-owner-and-lightning-rod/