Pundits and “fair and balanced” newspeople need to stop blaming President Obama for the BP oil spill. Do you really believe that something Obama has or has not done either caused or is making the spill worse? Do you really expect Obama to be an oil expert with full knowledge on how to cap, contain, and clean up the situation? Of course not. That’s why he has a cabinet of people empowered with either the knowledge of what to do and/or the resources to find out what to do. Beyond that, what about the oil industry’s responsibility?
If my home is heated with oil, and I have an oil tank beneath my home, is it the mayor’s job to know how to clean it up? Of course not. It’s MY job, as owner of the house, to either clean it up or pay someone to do what I am not capable of doing. What is the mayor’s job is to make sure I’ve cleaned it up and paid any necessary reparations to restore the land to what is was before the spill.
Let’s also stop referring to the spill as “Obama’s Katrina” because there’s a very big difference. Although President Bush did not and could not cause the death and destruction brought by Hurricane Katrina, he did make a few mistakes in public relations, band-aids, and over-estimation. Hurricane Katrina was on the way, giving people time to prepare and evacuate. Bush could not force people to evacuate, nor could he provide protection from the coming storm. However, just like 9/11, he could have taken the forecast more seriously instead of waving a hand and dismissing the potential. After the storm, Bush basically flew over Louisiana, waved, and dropped in to tell everyone what a good job “Brownie” (ex-FEMA head Michael Brown) was doing. Afterward, when the real damage was coming to light, he threw cash cards and trailers at the homeless and hoped they would go away.
Did Obama have a forecast on the oil spill? Did anyone hand the President a report warning of the likely failure of the oil rig and a projection on the environmental damage? Did he have a chance to take action before the danger occurred?
I don’t recall that, but feel free to educate me if i missed something.
What you are missing is that Obama’s failure to lead on the issue is exactly the same as Bush’s. Obama’s passivity and indifference, to put it politely, is the failure. Nobody has said “he should have known”. It is his aloofness and probably his schadenfreude towards a British company (remember his “reception of Gordon Brown? He has open disdain for our anglo saxon friends) that has been obvious and abhorrent.
But don’t take my word for it: see Frank Rich’s column in the NYT last Sunday. He is a big-time Liberal and Obama supporter and according to him, this disaster is WORSE than Bush’s Katrina failure. Seriously, go read it.
i will look for it. i don’t think obama is aloof or indifferent. i think he’s unarmed. it’s a disaster that isn’t yet comprehensible and won’t be for likely a decade. thanks for the direction.