Obama basically did what he could. Get the best people on it that he can, Coast Guard, Military, Civilian, and then put the onus on BP to do something about it.
No matter how many Obama beach pictures are posted on the internets, he is completely unable to actually do much of anything about the situation (Ok, maybe Putin could swim down there...).
The righties that are jumping on Obama's initial response are ignoring the fact that even if Obama had jumped up and down alot on day one, and brought the entire US Government into focus on this problem, the same amount of oil would still be floating towards shore right now. This is not like Katrina. There was a HELL of alot of support that could have been usefully provided in the early days that would have made a real difference to the overall results, but wasn't. In this case, the Government simply doesn't have the tools required to do the job, and are dangerously dependent on Private Industry to fix their booboo.
Obama is at risk, though. This thing isn't as ugly as it's going to get. Cross your fingers that this dome solution works, because if we have three months more of this, the gulf coast is going to be close to dead. If BP fails, then Obama could get blamed.
no subject
Obama basically did what he could. Get the best people on it that he can, Coast Guard, Military, Civilian, and then put the onus on BP to do something about it.
No matter how many Obama beach pictures are posted on the internets, he is completely unable to actually do much of anything about the situation (Ok, maybe Putin could swim down there...).
The righties that are jumping on Obama's initial response are ignoring the fact that even if Obama had jumped up and down alot on day one, and brought the entire US Government into focus on this problem, the same amount of oil would still be floating towards shore right now. This is not like Katrina. There was a HELL of alot of support that could have been usefully provided in the early days that would have made a real difference to the overall results, but wasn't. In this case, the Government simply doesn't have the tools required to do the job, and are dangerously dependent on Private Industry to fix their booboo.
Obama is at risk, though. This thing isn't as ugly as it's going to get. Cross your fingers that this dome solution works, because if we have three months more of this, the gulf coast is going to be close to dead. If BP fails, then Obama could get blamed.