One of the more depressing aspects of BP's petro-pocalypse in the Gulf of Mexico has been the readiness, even eagerness of many to turn this national catastrophe into just another opportunity for hyperventilating partisanship. You would think that this moment of crisis could have been a chance for the nation to forget its political differences and rally in unity to defeat a common ecological scourge. Not.
It does matter how well the President and government respond to this disaster; unfortunately there is scarcely a critic out there in the vast wasteland of American punditry who can be trusted to present an honest and, dare I say it, helpful critique, and fewer still who have any idea how we can get out of the mess BP's carelessness has gotten us into. Sarah Palin has naturally taken as much advantage of this crisis as she can, with one presumes an eye on showing Tea Partiers some leadership heading toward 2012. But she suffered her own blowout on, of all places, The O'Reilly Factor last night after heading for Fox's friendly confines and instead finding a lion's den. Her wobbly, petulant "verbage" was a jaw-dropping marvel to behold after O'Reilly tossed her a few wholly predictable questions that her handlers somehow did not prepare her for. Particularly liked the reference to the Dutch and their skill with dikes.
Were it any other politician in America, I would say this sorry, sophomore's "what had happened was" performance would be enough to put presidential aspirations aside, but this is Sarah P., and I feel like I am taking crazy pills times a billion whenever I turn on cable news, so who can say?
Hat-tip to the Daily Dish.
I'll just add that, as a Louisiana resident, I am disgusted that BOTH parties are ignoring the real time impacts this spill and the idiotic 6 month drilling moratorium is having on American blue collar workers and a region still recovering from TWO major hurricanes and instead want to fight about transitioning to a "green economy". And the commentators playing "keep the score" are just as bad. A pox on them all, I say.
As for Palin, sooner or later the liberal commentariat will figure out that 1) she's much better at relating to people in this situations than Obama (see Maureen Dowd this morning) AND as long as you keep throwing stones at her, she's going to remain popular!
First, stopping the actual leak is top priority. She definitely dodged the issue as to how to stop the leak. Of course no one knows how to do that. And she deflected to other things but that is standard. But otherwise there was nothing that was upsetting. It is nothing that any politician would not do and because of the time difference in the replies, she is in Alaska, it looked a little befuddled. Obama is a master of deflection so what is the complaint here.
Second, cleaning it up. This is the secondary but very serious problem of containing the oil and this is one place the administration has dropped the ball. Apparently the Dutch were told to bug off and the booms in Maine are still in the warehouse and the Senators from Maine were wondering why no phone calls were returned. Jindal asked for help on this 5 weeks ago and little was supplied. This one area where there is negligence by the government.
Third, continue with the drilling and exploration. Stopping it is putting people out of work and some of the oil companies will move the rigs to Africa and it could be 18 months to two years before they come back. You do not just buy these at the supply house so the moving of them causes a lot of job losses. Someone said yesterday that each job lost on the rig causes about 8 additional jobs to be lost on shore. We should make sure no short cuts are taken as BP did but we should not stop altogether.
Palin made the obvious analysis that we need this type of energy for quite a long while so the intelligent discourse would be to admit this and deal with the alternatives. Don't expect that anytime soon from the Democrats.
This is EXACTLY right & Mr. Obama gets a pass on this from the media, who are more interested in the politics of the situation. People think the moratorium on drilling will really get the big oil companies; it WON'T, they're able to shift resources to South Africa or Latin America. Who gets hurt are the little local companies that supply the drilling rigs, etc. They are not able to weather this. Some commentators on here are always harping about jobs being "sent overseas"; well our own American government is doing that now with this moratorium. There have been over 50,000 wells drilled in the Gulf, 4,000 being deepwater well; this is the FIRST accident. I notice that America has been covering the environmental angle of the story very well; I'm sure their correspondent from the fishermen and oystermen that they DO NOT want drilling stopped. Its very frustrating down here right now.
And I thank God that we have a president who is responding to this catastrophe with measures that are deliberate and system changing. He is acting from a long-term perspective and acting in our best interests in the years and decades to come.
British Petroleum is responsible for this oil spill, for stopping the leak, and for cleaning up the oil that has been spilled - not President Obama.
-I wish then you could sit in my place & look into the eyes of unemployed workers as a result of a moratorium that is very deliberate & catastrophic economically. If the President's intent is to change the system by killing the current system, he is on the road to success. IF that is his plan, then I will move from being a critic of the President to an outright opponent of the President who hopes for his failure in this regard.
"He is acting from a long-term perspective and acting in our best interests in the years and decades to come."
-Ironically, as the former President of Shell stated on Charlie Rose last night, his "plan" (which we don't even know yet, I might add) only serves the interests of Big Energy.
"British Petroleum is responsible for this oil spill, for stopping the leak, and for cleaning up the oil that has been spilled - not President Obama."
-Sorry, but this is not accurate under federal law (The Oil Pollution Act of 1990). I prefer, to paraphrase St. Thomas More, the world to act according to its whits & the law than on prayer alone.
Could you be more specific in explaining how the President's plan serves the interests of Big Energy? (and what that means - who and what is Big Energy?)
I am not acquainted with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and after looking at a Wikipedia entry, I still don't understand it. It seems to me to be saying that the company is liable for the damage resulting from an oil spill.
What do you think that President Obama should do?
Everyone remebers Jimmy Carter inability to handle the 444 days of the Iranian hostage crisis. Jimmay Carter was not able to do anything diplomatically or militarily to effect the release of the American hostages in Iran. Jimmy Carter was overwhelmingly defeated for re-election in 1980.
Obama is demonstarting the same inability to manage a crisis. The Gulf Oil crisis is now in its 57th day and no sure plan is in effect. Obama's speech last night removed any doubt that President lacks the leadership ability to handle the Gulf oil crisis.
Obama speech was overwhelming disapproved of by the left, the right and the center for it ineffectualness in all media outlets. His attemp to use the crisis to launch the "cap and trade" legislative initiative made no sense in solving the immeadiate gulf oil crisis and was very awkward and unhelpful.
Sara Palin is not the problem; President Obama leadership is the problem.
fairly reviewed Palin analysis is completely correct, the focal point of the Presdients efforts needs to be to stop the oil flow. As long as the oil flows, the crisis will continue.
It is rediculous to suggest that Sarah Palin should provide a a technical solution to the President. The President needs to finally get his own technical solution. Getting a technical solution that stops the flow of oil is Obama's job. The real question is how long will it take Obama to get an effective technical solution to permanently stop the flow of oil in the gulf?
Nice try to divert attention from Obama's poor speech last night and his poor performance for the last 57 days. But Obama as of last night has demonstrated his lack of executive expereince and lack of ability to manage this crisis.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201006170007
Excuse me, Obama suggested that we had 57 states, his wife was proud of this country the first time thoroughly disrgarding all of the ex-slaves who served in the Union Army, including two of Frederick Douglas' children, with or without pay, and every time this country has come together for a common cause with people from every other nation on the earth, and a staff that would make a mob boss nervous! Well, yah, sure, but what's with Sarah Palin???
Can we knock it off already!?! Seriously. Palin didn't tell the 16 oil sucking barges to shut down nor did she promise to restore the Gulf to better than it's previous condition while playing his next golf outing! Geesh!!