01/02/2011
It was a week ago tonight that President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address and introduced most of the world to a man named Brandon Fisher. It was a charming story—just a small town boy...who started a little company in Berlin, Pennsylvania...that saved the thirty-three Chilean miners buried last summer in Copiapó, Chile.
As the President put it, “Brandon thought his company could help. And so he designed a rescue that would come to be known as Plan B. His employees worked around the clock to manufacture the necessary drilling equipment. And Brandon left for Chile.”
“Along with others, he began drilling a 2,000 foot hole into the ground, working three or four days at a time with no sleep. Thirty-seven days later, Plan B succeeded, and the miners were rescued. But because he didn’t want all of the attention, Brandon wasn’t there when the miners emerged. He had already gone home, back to work on his next project.”
Aw shucks, little old humble Brandon saved the day and just left. No need for a pat on the back.
Except it didn’t really happen like that.
Brandon was the latest example of the American obsession with turning regular Joes into symbols of whatever fits the prevailing narrative of the times. But while almost everyone saw Joe the Plumber for what he was, no one wanted to question the veracity of the Fisher story.
Not now.
Not at the expense of a President trying to unite a divided America.
But as André Sougarret, the leader of the rescue said: “What they did was put a technology at our disposal…. It wasn’t exclusive. That’s why it was called “Plan B”. Plan A and Plan C kept working. So what they did wasn’t an exclusive operation. Without a doubt the participation of his entire team allowed for our success. But to believe they were the only participants in the success is too much. It doesn’t seem right to me.”
Another thing that didn’t seem right to me was the implication that Fisher’s company—Center Rock, did this all pro bono.
Of course they didn’t. They were paid handsomely. It was a business transaction that benefitted everyone involved—not a humanitarian mission.
It was a technical team led by the state-owned copper mining company Codelco, Escondida and Collahuasi—two other big Chilean mining companies—that determined how the Plan B drilling would be carried out.
It’s not that the Chileans weren’t and aren’t grateful, but at a certain point there’s only so far the truth can be bent.
Like that homeless guy with the magic voice from a few weeks ago, I imagine Mr. Fisher’s fifteen minutes are over. But with the miners at Disney World last week and a movie being discussed, I can’t help but wonder how Brandon Fisher will ultimately be portrayed—as an astute business man who saw a great opportunity for his company and jumped on it, or the altruistic American hero President Obama made him out to be.
It’s clearly open to interpretation.
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