oil spill

[mike777]

My take:

 

 

One can make a decent in theory argument it is unfair....unjust or unreasonable to blame Obama.

 

In practice my take is......they did not cap the well this weekend...etc........he is going to be hurt by all of this....hurt bad.......in the sense of Katrina.....

 

 

Take all the other issues...health care...the deficit...the wars.....the economy...unemployment...etc........now add oil soaked beaches and birds.....and triple it.

 

--------------

 

 

Going back to just theory I think this again raises the issue......government cannot do alot of stuff......such as create alot of new jobs......stop oil...etc...../solve your problem/ but perhaps this is another thread.

[luke warm]

this is one of those things in which people love to talk blame, but there really isn't any blame... unless something comes to light, such as bp failing to utilize some technology that could either stop the leak or destroy that which has already leaked (for, say, profit reasons), this is just a huge accident

[hrothgar]

this is one of those things in which people love to talk blame, but there really isn't any blame... unless something comes to light, such as bp failing to utilize some technology that could either stop the leak or destroy that which has already leaked (for, say, profit reasons), this is just a huge accident

But probe a little more, and maybe it's not so surprising. BP has the worst safety record, by far, of all the companies drilling along the coast. They regularly flout the law: They've got 760 citations for "egregious, willful safety violations" from OSHA; their nearest competitor in the oil industry, Sunoco, has 8 (Exxon, the last poster-child for oil-industry irresponsibility, has only 1.) They've now had three fatal accidents in the U.S. in the last five years. There was plenty of evidence that BP had prior knowledge of the problems that led to its Texas City refinery explosion, which killed 15 people, and the horrific Alaska North Slope oil spill. The fines the company has had to pay just haven't sufficiently cut into its profits.

 

http://www.salon.com/news/louisiana_oil_sp.../top_kill_fails

[Winstonm]

this is just a huge accident

 

Huge accident=Act of God

God=BP

[babalu1997]

this is all the normal consenquece of the free marketeers and globalizators

 

governements are corrupt, corporations can be trusted to do good for the people

[andrei]

this is one of those things in which people love to talk blame, but there really isn't any blame... unless something comes to light, such as bp failing to utilize some technology that could either stop the leak or destroy that which has already leaked (for, say, profit reasons), this is just a huge accident

too bad GWB is not the president anymore, everybody would know who is to blame.

[kenberg]

No one held Mr. Bush responsible for not stopping the hurricane and no one should hold Mr. Obama responsible for not capping the well. No one knows how to do either. Mr. Bush was judged on how he dealt with the tragic aftermath, and is entirely proper for Mr. Obama to be judged on that basis as well. The government does not know how to cap that well. It is supposed to know how to deploy resources to minimize the catastrophic consequences. We shall see how he does.

[3for3]

He has already failed in containing the consequences. The administration's failure to have more resources dedicated to this is a failure similar to the slow Katrina response.

 

To be clear, I am talking containment, not the capping of the well itself

 

Danny

[blackshoe]

I have not followed this closely, and I am no expert on oil spills, but it may not have been possible to contain this one.

[hrothgar]

He has already failed in containing the consequences. The administration's failure to have more resources dedicated to this is a failure similar to the slow Katrina response.

 

To be clear, I am talking containment, not the capping of the well itself

 

Danny

Uh huh...

 

The most common number that I've seen says that there are 20,000 people working full time to try to contain the damage. Just how many more do we need? 20K, 100K, a million?

 

As I said before,

 

All the King's horses, and all the King's men

Couldn't put Humpty back together again

 

Regretfully, this isn't the sort of thing that you can clean up in any meaningful way after the fact. The only way to effectively contain these sorts of problems is very heavy regulation before hand.

 

Its very clear that Federal government screwed this up, big time. (For the record, I think that the blame needs to get spread around to Obama, Bush I, Clinton... I think that the rot dates back at least to Reagan).

 

I wish that Obama hadn't capitulated to the "Drill Baby Drill" idiots trying to get support for the energy bill. This would have worked a lot better had he stood his ground and opposed new drilling from the get go.

[Winstonm]

I wish that Obama hadn't capitulated to the "Drill Baby Drill" idiots

 

President Capitulation did an obama about oil - now there's a shock...and awe. If this guy ever suggests an original idea it will be his first, and even then Rahm will make him negotiate it away in order to "look" centrist.

[luke warm]

He has already failed in containing the consequences.  The administration's failure to have more resources dedicated to this is a failure similar to the slow Katrina response.

 

To be clear, I am talking containment, not the capping of the well itself

 

Danny

from maureen dowd's op-ed

Once more, he has willfully and inexplicably resisted fulfilling a signal part of his job: being a prism in moments of fear and pride, reflecting what Americans feel so they know he gets it.

 

“This president needs to tell BP, ’I’m your daddy,’ “ scolded James Carville, a New Orleans resident, as he called Barack Obama’s response to Louisiana’s new watery heartbreak “lackadaisical.”

[hrothgar]

I wish that Obama hadn't capitulated to the "Drill Baby Drill" idiots

 

President Capitulation did an obama about oil - now there's a shock...and awe. If this guy ever suggests an original idea it will be his first, and even then Rahm will make him negotiate it away in order to "look" centrist.

Grow up...

 

I'd stack the legislative accomplishments of the Obama administration against any in my lifetime. He hasn't done everything the way I might have wanted, but its bullshit to act as if he hasn't achieved anything.

 

Health Care reform

avoiding a second Great Depression

Bailing out the auto industries

Looks like we're going to see DADT repealed

 

and all this with what might be the most useless, obstructionist opposition in the history of the country.

[Winstonm]

I'd stack the legislative accomplishments of the Obama administration against any in my lifetime.

 

Richard,

 

You need to live longer. Obama's attempt for extremely modest healthcare reform while placating the health insurance companies is a great accomplishment versus LBJ and the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid?

 

I also noticed you said "legislative accomplishments". I suppose you do not give him such high marks in foreign affairs or civil rights?

 

and all this with what might be the most useless, obstructionist opposition in the history of the country.

 

I agree with this - the opposition is mutant lifeforms, but the problem is some of this opposition comes from within the Democratic party with those good 'ol boy blue dog duds of democracy.

 

Still, why is Obama trying to placate morons?

[PassedOut]

Still, why is Obama trying to placate morons?

Can't speak for Richard, but in my opinion Obama's alternative is to fail to get anything accomplished at all. I fault US voters for electing so many morons.

[Winstonm]

Still, why is Obama trying to placate morons?

Can't speak for Richard, but in my opinion Obama's alternative is to fail to get anything accomplished at all. I fault US voters for electing so many morons.

The parties tell us for whom we can vote. Own the parties and you dictate who is on the ballot. For whom other than the balloted candidates would you have us vote?

[PassedOut]

The parties tell us for whom we can vote. Own the parties and you dictate who is on the ballot. For whom other than the balloted candidates would you have us vote?

Not all candidates are morons.

[jdonn]

Still, why is Obama trying to placate morons?

Can't speak for Richard, but in my opinion Obama's alternative is to fail to get anything accomplished at all. I fault US voters for electing so many morons.

The parties tell us for whom we can vote. Own the parties and you dictate who is on the ballot. For whom other than the balloted candidates would you have us vote?

If you think the choice is between 2 candidates and that both are morons then perhaps you shouldn't vote altogether. Having Moron A beat Moron B 936 to 395 rather than 19,500 to 13,311 might not help us in that given election but could definitely send a powerful message regarding future elections.

[cherdanno]

I think the American electorate has been trying to send that message for many years. I haven't noticed it's power yet.

[Winstonm]

Still, why is Obama trying to placate morons?

Can't speak for Richard, but in my opinion Obama's alternative is to fail to get anything accomplished at all. I fault US voters for electing so many morons.

The parties tell us for whom we can vote. Own the parties and you dictate who is on the ballot. For whom other than the balloted candidates would you have us vote?

If you think the choice is between 2 candidates and that both are morons then perhaps you shouldn't vote altogether. Having Moron A beat Moron B 936 to 395 rather than 19,500 to 13,311 might not help us in that given election but could definitely send a powerful message regarding future elections.

I am waiting for the moron runoff election after the first ballot is tied 0-0.

[jdonn]

I think the American electorate has been trying to send that message for many years. I haven't noticed it's power yet.

Really? I don't. And even if the message is ineffective I still prefer it to voting for a moron.

[kenberg]

This moron explanation is way, way, too easy.

 

Repairing the leak. I think some pretty smart people have no idea how.

 

Why in the hell are we pumping oil a mile beneath the surface, didn't someone realize the danger? Well, perhaps they did. But wasn't this supposed to be the way to protect the environment? Unless we all start biking to work we have to pump it from somewhere.

 

Shouldn't someone have been watching the procedure more carefully? Well of course, but maybe we have noticed that regulatory units often end up in cozy relations with the regulatees. Easy to decry, hard to fix. Shooting the SOBs maybe would be a deterrent, but there is opposition to capital punishment.

 

My Senators are Mikulski and Cardin. I don't know their IQs but I seriously doubt either one of them could plausibly be described as an idiot.

 

I hope we can save the gulf fishing industry. I hope we can save the gulf. I hope we can figure how to get the oil we need w/o selling our souls for it. I don't really see how, and hell, I don't even think of myself as a moron.

[cherdanno]

I think the American electorate has been trying to send that message for many years. I haven't noticed it's power yet.

Really? I don't. And even if the message is ineffective I still prefer it to voting for a moron.

 

First of all, voter turnout in the USA is lower than in any other democracy that I know of, by a lot.

Second, have you ever heard the term "voter suppression"? Yeah there are people out there who want to win elections on purpose by decreasing voter turnout. Do you think they will be scared by the "powerful message" of the success of their tactics after they have won the election?

Third, yeah there are morons in Congress. But to change that the best thing voters can do is every time there is a vote, to vote for the less moronic candidate.

Why is special interest money so powerful in the US? Because politicians are corrupt, or because in any election there is a huge chunk of uninformed voters whose vote get swayed by millions worth of campaign ads? Why do morons get elected - because the other candidate is also moron every single time, or because voters vote for whoever looks prettier, or has a nice accent?

 

And anyway, even if two morons are running for the Congressional seat in your district, there is still a lot at stake as the winner will, most of the time, vote with their party, and the two parties have fundamentally different opinions about what government should do (or whether it should do anything).

[hrothgar]

I also noticed you said "legislative accomplishments".  I suppose you do not give him such high marks in foreign affairs or civil rights?

 

 

I give Obama mixed marks on Foreign Policy.

 

I'd prefer to see the US cutting our losses in Afghanistan. I think that we need to cut off aid to Israel (especially in light of the latest idiocy). With this said and done, Obama's gotten an awful lot more right that he has wrong.

 

On the civil rights front, I'm horrified at the way Obama has been backpedaling regarding civil rights detainees. While something is happening on DADT, I think that this has a lot more to do with generational shifts in the military than effective leadership from the administration.

 

Then again, I don't find any of this all that surprising. Obama isn't a liberal / progressive. He's a centrist regardless of what the Republican's claim. I'm not surprised at the policies he's enacting.

Still, why is Obama trying to placate morons?

 

1. He's trying to co-opt the center

2. He's letting the Republican's portray themselves as completely useless obstructionists

3. Half a loaf is better than none

 

I'm going to close with a couple observations

 

Teddy Kennedy famously said that his greatest failure was his unwillingness to work with Richard Nixon towards health care reform back in the late 60s / early 70s. Kennedy preferred to hold out for something better and health care reform was delayed by close to 40 years (and what we have now isn't nearly as good as what was on the table back then)

 

Newt Gingrich self destructed when he and his merry band of yahoos decided to "shut down" the government.

[TimG]

Still, why is Obama trying to placate morons?

Can't speak for Richard, but in my opinion Obama's alternative is to fail to get anything accomplished at all. I fault US voters for electing so many morons.

The parties tell us for whom we can vote. Own the parties and you dictate who is on the ballot. For whom other than the balloted candidates would you have us vote?

If you think the choice is between 2 candidates and that both are morons then perhaps you shouldn't vote altogether. Having Moron A beat Moron B 936 to 395 rather than 19,500 to 13,311 might not help us in that given election but could definitely send a powerful message regarding future elections.

Perhaps better is to vote for a 3rd party or independent candidate rather than feigning apathy.