While the DC press corps and Peggy Noonan are crying like teenage girls about Daddy’s inability to make everything all better, let’s not forget that the policy Obama announced at his latest conference was sane, reasonable and right. Here’s oil industry analyst Dan Pickering:
On Thursday, President Obama called a halt to all deepwater drilling that is currently ongoing. While it might sound like blasphemy coming from a Texan with his livelihood tied to the oil / financial industry, the Obama decision is actually understandable. Can we blame the politicians for being cautious? There are 30+ rigs in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico performing some sort of well operation (drilling, workovers, completions, etc). Can the government really say with certainty that the current regulations and oversight will keep something bad from happening there? Probably not…as it didn’t stop the accident at the Macondo blowout. And therefore, is it worth the risk to let those 30 rigs continue drilling?
So as odd as it seems, the political and practical answers actually line up here. Stop, look, listen, evaluate, assess….and then set the new rules and guidelines on a timely basis. New standards by the end of 2010 is a reasonable timeline for something so serious and complex. For the 50,000+ workers actively involved in offshore oil production, a few months of slowdown is more than worth it if we can emerge with an industry that is safer (both for humans and the environment) and trusted again by the American public.
Some will probably take this as ironclad proof that Obama didn’t go far enough, but I think Pickering has it about right.
El Cid
DRILL BABY DRILL! AND DRILL NOW!
Government Takeover of the Private Economy!
States Rights! Keep out Washington Soshullism!
Nick
Well if an oilman approves, then by definition, Obama has to have sold us out.
Jane Hamsher logic.
Cat Lady
Obot.
Comrade Mary
I woke up this morning to this opening statement on a CBC newscast: “President Obama made his second trip to the Gulf Coast yesterday and touched the oil on the beach for himself, but it appears that the Deepwater site still continues to gush oil.”
What else do we expect from the guy? Is he supposed to go around curing scrofula, too?
donquijoterocket
Then of course there is the issue of nooners being a blithering idiot, but having the recommendation that she’s learned quite well the art of saying something the villagers of the SCLM will pick up and play with which made her invaluable to politicians and something of a minor fixture in the minds of the villagers.
Crusty Dem
All the president needs to do is get NASA to assemble a team of roughnecks and geniuses to undergo a few weeks of training in Houston and send them down in a NASA prototype space submersible to drill next to the leak and blow the whole thing with a hydrogen bomb. Just watch out for Steve Buscemi, he might get the underwater space madness..
J sub D
Obama is handling this more responsibly than I’d have expected. Sure it’s a top down FUBARed disaster but what can the federal government productively do to stop the gusher.
Coast Guard? – No applicable knowledge there.
Minerals Mangement Service? – Yeah, they’ve been on top of this stuff for decades.
Breaking up the MMS twin responsibilities for generating revenue and protecting the environment into seperate entities makes sense. The moratorium on new drilling may be overkill but not egregiously so. I’d be lying if I said I expected something like this to happen, I’d also be lying if I said I was surprised by the disaster. Industrial disasters happen, they suck, somehow 21st century civilization will move forward.
We can learn from mistakes and move on or we go full luddite. Cool heads, a no holds barred investigation of all involved, and BP/Deepwater Horizon paying out the ying-yang to send a message to everyboy else involved with offshore drilling are the most prudent things to do at this point.
Except for the minor silliness about Obama’s kids worries, I’m giving the guy a B+.
Rick Taylor
While I’m still angry with Obama for appointing Salazar to MMS rather than someone who’d reform the agency before this disaster, now that it’s happened this is about right (and I’m assuming Salazar will be replaced when it’s expedient to do so). Naturally, big business will revile Obama for daring to regulate them after they destroyed the Gulf coast ecosystem, much as their currently reviling him for daring to attempt to regulate finance after the banks decimated the economy.
El Cid
Just for reference here, I did a Google News search, and the last reference to Jane Hamsher outside blogs and by an actual news source was on 12 May by the Barnesville, GA gazette, and an article on NPR about the ‘Audit the Fed’ amendment, same day.
So, obviously, all stories need to be connected to her. And John Edwards. And Glenn Greenwald.
Jim J
All right, that’s enough. You guys are just shooting the messengers now.
At some point not acknowledging the public’s clear distaste for the president’s handling of this crisis becomes sticking your heads in the sand.
Clearly there are some serious issues with how this president responded/didn’t respond. You can deny it all you want but the issues remain.
Nick
@Jim J:
because the public thinks something does not make it true Jim. see: Arizona Immigration Law, Iraq War, spending, gay marriage, torture, GITMO closing. We acknowledge the public’s dissapproval of the President’s handling, we think they’re wrong and that if they knew the truth of how it has played out, they wouldn’t think that way. We’re not shooting the messengers, we’re shooting the creators of the message.
the public is often very wrong and when it is, it’s usually because they’re being told to think that way by people on TV with suits on.
Stroszek
Aren’t these the people who mocked others for allegedly thinking that Obama was the messiah?
MattF
Ya think, maybe, that after the 38,429th repetition of “Obama does the right thing, wacko right-wing media/tea-bag/village goes crazy,” that people will catch on? I’m hopeful, actually. But only sometimes…
Stroszek
@Jim J: And because the public thought there were WMDs in Iraq (due in no part whatsoever to our objective, editorial-averse media), we were required to address the issue of WMDs in Iraq.
Unabogie
@Jim J:
A few days after this disaster occurred, I started a thread in a science forum asking about what technology actually existed to stop the leak. The universal answer was drilling a relief well, and that this would take a few months. Everything else was worth trying, but likely to fail.
In this reality, Obama sent a team of the brightest minds in the country (world?), thousands of workers, and the full force of the Coast Guard to try other methods while two relief wells were drilled.
In this world, the world of reality, what other steps should they have taken? Given the public daily updates that yes, it’s still leaking?
DougJ called this optical delusions and he was right on. In the reality based community, we realize what needed to be done and are satisfied it is being done. In Ponyland, industry is not being excoriated enough and the crisis is not being exploited enough. That Obama should be using this crisis to cynically force through other agenda items the same way Bush did after 9/11. On the contrary, Obama seems solely interested in solving the problem with minimal noise. Thank god.
A+
Jim J
@Nick: It’s still very possible that this crisis will get worse and Obama will continue to mishandle/miscommunicate. In such a case I assume public approval will get even lower.
If this happens, at what point do you abandon the “Obama is always ahead of the people” hypothesis in favor of “this cat is in way over his head?”
I think it’s a fair question to ask of someone holding what I see as a pretty cavalier position toward public opinion in what’s after all a democracy.
Pamela F
@Jim J:
Okay Jim J, what exactly are the serious issues with how the president responded/didn’t respond? The criticisms I hear come from a media that doesn’t explain what he has done…no, scrap that…they often don’t report it, let alone explain it. What constraints did the law put into effect after the Exxon/Valdez place on the types of responses or their efficacy?
While there may be legitimate criticisms over mistakes or bad calls…all I’m hearing is that Obama is not engaged enough because he doesn’t emote enough, those asking if this is Obama’s Katrina by “reporting” on those who are trying to make it so.
J sub D
@Jim J: What should Obama have done differently? Donned a deep-sea diving rig, grabbed a box full of Craftsman hand tools and personally stemmed the flow? The president isn’t Superman. All of the kings horses and all the king’s men together lack the expertise that the big oil companies have for dealing with this. If the public doesn’t understand that POTUS ≠ God, it is time they learned.
Full disclosure – I didn’t vote for The Chosen One, I am unhappy with his performance in office and will most likely not vote for him in 2012. I still try to evaluate his separate policies and actions individually. It’s an honesty thing.
Pamela F
@J sub D: Interesting. Who did you vote for and who would you vote for in 2012?
JMG
This is an engineering problem. OF COURSE people are mad it hasn’t been fixed. Everyone trying to fix it is mad, too. Presidents get blamed for everything, it’s part of the job, but we should at least try to deal in reality. Might the government have moved faster? Maybe. Might the government have exercised more control over BP’s efforts? Absolutely. But stopping the leak is not something over which Obama has control or can rightly be blamed for. It’s just turning out to be a very hard problem.
Needless to say, it is much more convenient for the oil industry and its allies to have people mad at Obama for not stopping the leak than to have them mad at him for not being tougher on the oil industry. So we unfair instead of fair criticism, because it feathers the right nests.
Jim J
I and many others have written on what we’d like the president to do better. There is a large body of commentary on this already.
Any laundry list from me here would just be used as a springboard for more of the tired “oh and now I guess you want him to put on a wetsuit, etc.” strawman that is now an automatic cut-and-paste response for Obama apologists, triggering the usual snickers.
Neither I nor anyone else has suggested a wetsuit, a magic wand, donning of capes, exerting superpowers, etc., or any other such bons mot. And those lines are not getting any funnier with use.
What many people, including many of those actually impacted by this disaster (and I’m guessing the overlap between those people and most Balloon Juice commenters is pretty small) are saying is we expect more from a chief executive in a time of dire crisis that has already dragged on for over a month. The fact that this far into the crisis there seems to be not much of an end in sight is a pretty damning indictment in and of itself.
When asked yesterday about the status of the response, Obama said “All I can tell you is we have the best minds looking into this.” That is not reassuring at all, neither in optics nor in practical terms.
Davis X. Machina
Obama should have yelled, and broken shit, and stuff.
When I left the polling booth in ’08, I said to myself ‘That’s done! Now we have our Bush — and he better start yelling, and breaking shit, and stuff.”
But he isn’t yelling, and breaking shit, and stuff.
I feel….so….used.
slag
@Jim J:
OK. What do you think he should have said? What exactly would have reassured you?
Damned at Random
A few thoughts:
1) a moratorium on continued drilling will give the stripped down crews on those rigs time to catch up on their preventive maintenance and do a realistic evacuation drill even if it accomplishes nothing else
2) I was impressed by Obama during the financial meltdown because he didn’t “suspend” his campaign and get the vapors like the oposition candidate. I don’t miss the drama on the oil spill either- just do a competent job with the tools at hand and put better controls in place to prevent a repeat. The No Drama Obama still works for me even if cable TV wants a better show
3) If BP won’t give the clean-up workers respirators, FEMA should. And OSHA should be on the scene as well.
Cat Lady
@Pamela F:
Just so you know, Jim J is suffering from DougJ’s optical delusion and is a PUMA, but won’t admit it and will accuse you of trying to change the subject of how much Obama is teh suXX0r. This is his second trip through here with the exact same comments from the previous thread. Hillary would have had the well capped, the BP executives in jail, the wetlands restored, the media showering rose petals at her feet and the citizens of a grateful nation pouring into the streets singing Hosanna, all by last Tuesday. Why she relied on an advisor who didn’t understand how the primary delegate process worked is irrelevant. Your facts and logic will get. you. nowhere.
Unabogie
@slag:
My point exactly. In the reality of planet earth, where the only solution is a relief well and other things are being tried just in case we get lucky, what else is there to do? What else is there to say?
“We’re working on this, we have the best minds in place working long days on the problem, we all want it fixed, and once it’s fixed, we’ll clean up the mess and make BP pay for it all”.
This is reality. There is nothing else.
Pamela F
@Cat Lady: Thanks, Cat Lady. “PUMAitis explains a lot. It will take a while for me to gain my bearings.
Jim J
@Cat Lady: Of course at no time have I mentioned Hillary in all this, nor will I in the future.
But I don’t expect that to stop personal attacks. Keep ’em coming, it just proves my point that your head is in the sand and you’d prefer to focus on anything other than Obama’s pretty obvious lack of clear executive control over this clearly federal issue.
cleek
don’t waste your breath, Jim J.
they’ve got their storyline and they’re sticking to it.
cleek
(nothing here)
J sub D
@Pamela F:
Bob Barr while holding my nose.
I’ve had it with both the GOP and the Dems. The two major parties just deliver different big government, freedom crushing outrages.
Jim J
@Pamela F: Nailed it. That clear majority of Americans who disapproves of Obama’s handling of this crisis? All PUMAs. Every last one.
WereBear
Oh, that had me LOLing until I cried. Thanks.
I suppose you would prefer the Bush approach? Wherein the worst possible minds are sought out, paraded for their optics, and lionized for their ideological devotion to things that are not practical in any terms?
We don’t have any other way to stop the oil gusher. We don’t have a way of teleporting me to Maryland to have lunch with my inlaws. We don’t have proof of life after death one way or another.
It must be Obama’s fault.
Unabogie
@Jim J:
Meh. When the leak stops, they’ll approve of that. Until then, people are angry. Good thing President Obama realizes this and is keeping a cool head.
WereBear
@J sub D: Bob Barr?!?!?!
From der wiki:
Ooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Good luck with that.
de stijl
@Jim J:
You actually did a complete response without explicitly playing the strawman card. [Golf clap]
slag
@Unabogie: I’ll be honest and admit that before the decision to halt further drilling for a while, I too was very dissatisfied and felt like more could be done. I don’t really understand why we needed to wait for that decision. It was a decision that didn’t seem to require evidence–it required logic. As Dan Pickering indicated when he said:
How is this conclusion not painfully obvious from the very day that this explosion happened and oil started gushing uncontrollably in the Gulf? I don’t understand that part.
But as for the rest, I completely agree with you. This situation was almost inevitable (based on the way we had been handling oil companies before now), and we knew from experience and simple logic that once it happened there was no going back. These problems are notoriously hard to solve, which is why prevention is really the only satisfying solution to them. But we made the choices we made nonetheless. Complaining now really does just seem like whining.
If you’re in the Gulf dealing directly with this stuff, I pity you. But really, you should be blaming the conditions that created this disaster. And some of that blame should be focused on yourselves, since, honestly, this is exactly what the majority of you voted for.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jim J:
Okay. Just when I think that people here really are being a bit too Obotty, then I read someone like Jim J and realize why.
Right, because Hillary/McCain/Sarah Palin/Howard Dean or anyone else who could possibly have been chosen President instead would clearly have been much more adept at managing the Federal response to this disaster, so that all the oil would have been cleaned up, everyone hugged/yelled at/winked at/ so they feel better, and the contract retroactively not given to BP to drill in the first place.
It’s funny, but to me the only clear mistake, politically, that Barack Obama made was his “drill baby drill” period which lasted about three weeks and had the most unfortunate timing in history. Strangely however, almost none of those faulting his response to this are even citing that, but instead making claims like this, that he’s in over his head, like Palin’s claim that having been a failed half-term governor like her would have prepared him better for something like this.
I agree with Greenwald’s take on this largely, we create this God-like all-powerful Presidency (including many here at BJ) and then suffer this foolishness when it’s shown to be a fantasy.
Oh and by the way, it’s “bons mots” (or conceivably “bon mots”) for the plural, not “bons mot”. I know, small thing, but if we’re talking about competence, well there we are.
scav
@Jim J:
We’re clearly not from the same space-time dimension. Go elect a teddy bear and binky.
slag
@Jim J: You’re undermining your case by not answering the simple question. If you can’t answer it, specifically, then you really are just trolling and very much deserve the ridicule you receive.
Jim J
@WereBear: Yes, I want him to cure scrofula. Don’t you? I have made this clear. Cure. Scrofula. Now.
And yes, I would greatly prefer the Bush approach. Look at my comments, that’s exactly what I said, repeatedly: I thought Bush would have handled this much, much more competently.
Don’t take my word for it. Go back to my comments and see for yourself how many, many times I mentioned Bush.
And for that matter, Hillary too.
Hint: It’s a lot.
I do indeed want Obama to wave his magic wand and solve everything. My position, succinctly stated, many times.
Just look at my comments, it’s all right there in black and white: Magic. Wand. Now. It’s pretty much all I have to say.
Furthermore, the magic wand thing completely encapsulates any and all criticism of Obama on this issue.
Because I want him to wave a magic wand, you see, any and all criticism is of course completely invalid.
That’s how this works!
Oh, and I also want him to grow gills, put on a wetsuit, go down to the leak and use his super-duper Aquaman powers to stop the leak. As I have said many, many times here.
Those are exactly my positions. As I have stated repeatedly.
Happy now? Knock yourself out.
ruemara
so, JimJ, Cleek, etc, what would you have happen? I also don’t see any “Obama is way ahead of the people” narrative in what is being said to you. Most of it boils down to “what people are saying should be done-surprise! It’s already being done.”
If we’re blinded because we don’t think the president is doing anything clearly wrong in handling this crisis, then please explain what methods you think he is ignoring/unaware of.
Mike E
@Crusty Dem:
He may have ocean madness, but that’s no excuse for ocean rudeness!
Stroszek
@Unabogie: Correct answer. The “concern” about “optics” is a pundit-grade excuse to continue criticizing Obama while implicitly acknowledging that there’s nothing he can really do about it.
When the oil stops leaking, people will approve. While the oil continues to leak, people will continue to disapprove. That is the reality.
The nonsensical notion that there’s an “optical” trick to make people feel better about an ongoing, material disaster is delusional. Pundits talk about “optics” because it makes their vacuous obsession with “teh politics” seem relevant and meaningful. Non-pundits engaging in this behavior are merely expressing a compulsive need to criticize the President 24/7, even when they know it can’t be meaningfully substantiated.
slag
@J sub D: Moron. You’re a moron and deserve the representation you get. I can’t believe you honestly expect people to take you seriously.
trollhattan
Isn’t it SOP in the armed services to, for example, ground an entire airplane fleet when there’s been a serious problem/crash and then conduct a service-wide review? Halting all drilling would seem likewise prudent and should be SOP going forward. Burden of proof necessarily falls on the companies, while the regulators need to begin, you know, regulating, i.e., no more hookers and blow.
WWCD? (What would Cheney do?)
WereBear
I couldn’t agree more. Yet we gotta kill people before some of them realize a bad thing could happen.
The press used to live for such exposes. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Nelly Bly going undercover in a madhouse, even Black Like Me. Justly famous, and often leading to insight and oversight.
I never thought I’d say this, but where are the guddam sob stories? We have so many; the health noninsurance, little kids losing their kidneys to e coli outbreaks, people getting thrown out of their houses even when their mortgage is up to date, the shameful state of prescription drugs and their ignored side effects.
The press won’t touch such stories now… because it exposes their Masters as the mammon worshipping psychopaths they are.
Davis X. Machina
Most of the heads that should have rolled at MMS were all at a level where they enjoy the same civil service protections that kept at least some competent career managers in place in regulatory agencies generally during the Bush era — protections in whose absence the entire federal edifice would have been replaced by apparatchiki.
“Mandarins, yes, but our mandarins” isn’t a tenable management strategy in the long run.
Mike E
The bobblespeak is not matching the visual evidence–the spinmeisters are spewing talking points that say essentially, “Believe me, not your lying eyes.” I’m thinking a reasonably sentient public can discern between the oily goo they hear and the nasty residue that is/will be washing up on familiar shores.
Stroszek
@J sub D:
Are you sure want to go with “The Chosen One?” Why not “Obambi” or “The Kenyan… you know the one”?
robertdsc
It took the Soviet government several months and the equivalent of 18 billion dollars to design and build the sarcophagus that covered over the No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl. That was with a state-run economy and no laws to worry about. Obama doesn’t have that kind of luxury or legal standing. He is doing everything he can within the limits of the law to deal with the situation.
Ming
You’re absolutely right — that *isn’t* reassuring. What if the truth is not reassuring? What if that IS the best anyone can tell us, because there is no surefire immediate solution, and what’s really going on is we have a huge fucking mess on our hands for which we are woefully unprepared?
If you haven’t checked it out yet, I recommend the discussion at The Oil Drum. Collectively, those folks have an amazing amount of relevant knowledge. And from the discussion there, it looks to me like all we have is an effective but unacceptably slow solution (relief wells), and a few quicker but far-from-guaranteed solutions.
rootless_e
obama optics look bad
he’s failed to own the outrage
if he can’t be a leader
our only hope is
POUTRAGE
Jim J
@Stroszek: I have to say I find the disdain here toward the dreaded ‘optics’ strange and frankly out of touch.
In modern democracies since the early 20th Century, optics is how people get elected. That’s the whole point, to project a vision and a means to get it done.
In doing this, you either attract or repel voters, and generally a little bit of both.
Optics=politics=power and the effective use thereof.
If you’re failing the optics game, you’re failing the leadership game too.
de stijl
I’m developing a theory.
On this particular issue, I think it’s not really an Obot vs. Firebagger thing – it’s a fundamental temperment thing.
In thinking about my own career, I see an obvious divide between engineering/IT types and marketing/PR types. Engineering/IT types will have an immediate response to a situation like the Deepwater Horizon spill, and what is the appropriate response to the problem, that is fundamentally opposed to the way a marketing/PR will respond.
Each type will think the other is missing the point entirely.
Both will try to convince the other that their point of view is the correct way to address the matter at hand.
What neither fully appreciate is that both approaches are necessary.
slag
@Jim J: Answer this question specifically or STFU. This isn’t hard.
Cat Lady
@robertdsc:
But Jim J is sure there’s Something Else(TM) he could have been doing. What about that, huh? huh?
scav
@de stijl: well, there’s PR and there’s LCD PR, and going all emo rather than acknowledging the complexity of what’s going on because it plays well to the villagers and the 5 second sound bites on the TV screen is LCD PR as far as I’m concerned. BP uppermanagement types have no doubt been listening hard to their spin doctors and look how it’s worked for them.
Svensker
@Jim J:
“I’ve said those things I’m not going to explain now at some unknown point in the past at some unknown place. If I told you what they are now, you’d be mean, so I’m not gonna. Obama is a poopy head.”
Does that pretty much sum it up?
Davis X. Machina
@slag:
We both know the answer: “Effective at noon tomorrow, I resign.”
He’ll maintain otherwise, of course, which is why I can’t take his protestations seriously.
gwangung
And I think a lot of people think an over-reliance on “optics” is a symptom of “winning the daily news cycle.” In other words, an outmoded, short sighted and downright stupid strategy.
In other words, people here do not think of that as leadership; it’s more like pandering. And it’s a symptom of contempt for the general population, who can see through a lot of it.
WereBear
So true. At one time, reconciling the two, and fostering communication between them, was my job.
Person of Choler
“Can the government really say with certainty that the current regulations and oversight will keep something bad from happening there?”
Hate to break this to you, but the government can’t say with certainty that something bad won’t happen anywhere, even a government headed by He Who Would Heal the Planet and Stop the Ocean from Rising or whatever.
By the way, how come the guy who could modulate sea level can’t stop oil from leaking from what (relatively speaking) is an insignificant pinprick at the bottom of the vast ocean he told us he would operate?
Mnemosyne
@Jim J:
Unfortunately, Jim, that’s all there is for him to say. This is an engineering problem that has never been encountered before. We are trying to get to a hole 3,000 feet below the ocean’s surface that’s underneath 600 feet of mud at a depth where we can’t even send a submersible.
Your contention that someone else would have done a better job and gotten the problem fixed by now has zero evidence and is clearly an emotional reaction to the realization that this is a really, really bad crisis with no quick solution. From the very beginning, the government and BP said the most likely solution was the relief wells that started being drilled four days after the accident and will take several more months to complete. Everything else is just an attempt to get it cut off sooner rather than sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for 4-6 months waiting for the thing they know for sure is going to work to be completed.
This is why you keep getting mocked. You’re acting like there’s a simple solution that hasn’t been tried, and there just isn’t one, so now you’re flailing around looking for someone to blame because you’re angry that the simple solution you want doesn’t exist.
People are going to be pissed off at Obama until either BP caps the well or the relief wells are completed and the oil stops flowing into the Gulf. That’s just a fact and there’s not a whole lot he can do about that.
Stroszek
@Jim J:
This is another myth that pundits tell themselves to elevate their useless “art.”
Actual political scientists will tell you that the outcome of virtually any election can be determined by examining the material conditions encountered by voters. The “brilliance” of Obama’s 2008 campaign was in no small part a result of the financial meltdown. In fact, as I recall, pundits dismissed him as an incompetent campaigner until material conditions changed so drastically in his favor that a McCain victory was no longer considered plausible.
American swing voters are results-oriented. They’re woefully short-sighted, but they are results-oriented. To the extent that “optics” are a problem to be addressed, it’s a matter of material conditions informing the “optics.” Change the reality and you change the “optics.” Dicking around with political theater in the midst of a disaster almost always comes off as desperation to swing voters.
Primary contests are an exception to this, because primary voters tend to be ideologues and ideologues, being more concerned with ideas than tangible outcomes, are actually susceptible to “messages” and “narratives.”
J sub D
@slag: @J sub D: Moron. You’re a moron and deserve the representation you get. I can’t believe you honestly expect people to take you seriously.
How’s that reducing the 200,000 troops in Asia coming along? As good as closing Gitmo I see. That deficit neutral health care bill? Oh well, it passed, it doesn’t matter it will cost at least twice as advertised. The Obama administration is devoting record sums to fight the failed War on Drugs Liberty while he mocks those who think reefer prohibition should be rethought. Deficit levels have only increased from the previous fiscally irresponsibility administration.
Mr Chosen One has deported more people to Latin America in his first year than Bush the Lesser did in his last. He continues to assert the right to detain terror suspect indefinitely even if acquitted.
Go team, go!
BlizzardOfOz
Let’s see … Balloon Juice defending a corrupt, incompetent administration until the bitter end. This really is Bush’s 3rd term, isn’t it?
slag
@J sub D: You’re absolutely right. Bob Barr would have solved all of our problems by now. What was I thinking?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jim J: In other words “I’m complaining, therefore he’s failed somehow”?
You’re repeatedly making claims that imply comparison, for example “in over his head” makes all sorts of implications, that there is some level that he’s failed to rise to, for example, and presumably this level would be reached by others.
If on the other hand the notion of being “in over his head” is completely independent of what anyone else would do, as you keep claiming here, then what are you saying? That he’s completely overwhelmed by this disaster, and anyone else on the planet in his position would be also?
If so how does that differ from what everyone else here is saying?
Your claim that he’s somehow not measuring up, followed by repeated protests that “this doesn’t mean I have any measure in mind!” are not convincing, sorry.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Person of Choler: Great nick.
That is all.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
Eh, at this point voting for Bob Barr is the libertarian equivalent of voting for the Green Party. Barr left the Republicans quite a while ago, I believe over the Iraq war, so he does at least try to be ideologically consistent. It’s not like J sub D’s vote would have gone to Obama if Barr didn’t run — it just would have gone to whoever the Libertarian Party ran as their candidate.
ETA: I get more irritated with professed libertarians who swear that the Republican Party platform is, like, totally what Ayn Rand would have wanted than I do with the ones who at least stick to their insane beliefs and reject both parties.
Allison W.
@JimJ: the issue with most of the “solutions” offered is that they are coming from people who have no clue what they are talking about. They just focus on the optics because that’s all they know. That’s one of the major problems with the media – from Left to Right. Where is the commentary from people who have been educated, certified in this field? where are the experts who have actual experience? Instead we have bloggers, blog commentators, political opponents, pundits, and lobbyists giving their “very serious” solutions to a truly serious problem.
And to the person who said it was not comforting to viewers that Obama only said all he knows is that they have the best people working on it – you are for politicians providing false comfort then?
You know, I’m just really flabbergasted at this whole thing. So many times I have seen Obama being blasted for his rhetoric, claiming that his supporters see him as some Messiah, but when crisis occurs, they are the ones calling for that soaring rhetoric and demanding that miracles be pulled out of his arse – not those so-called Obamabots.
licensed to kill time
OT: Dennis Hopper died today, age 74. RIP, wild man.
Jim J
@slag: This is pretty simple, really. It’s not the gotcha you think it is.
Most of the public unrest towards the administration on this issue has to do with their hands-off attitude toward BP, which continues to lie and misrepresent, as corporations will do.
This hands-off attitude includes BP’s obvious coopting of Thad Allen and the Coast Guard, i.e., USCG threatening to arrest photogs, misinformation regarding Top Kill, etc.
Yes, it’s “optics” but in this case it’s also the public’s right to know what’s happening to a public resource.
While the actual stopping of the leak seems to rest with BP — the unfortunate result of decades of regulatory dismantlement — everything else comes under the bailiwick of the federal government, even if it’s the states that will actually direct specific cleanup efforts.
(Yes, it’s a federal issue — oceans are federal territory, beaches are publicly owned to the high-water line, the USCG is a federal entity. Yes, yes, yes, it’s federal.)
Unfortunately what we’ve got now is a situation where BP is not only in charge of technical aspects of the leak, but apparently of the entire crisis response. It didn’t have to be this way, and the president has the power to change this.
(Case in point, BP’s hiring of temp workers to clean the beach at Grand Isle just before the president’s visit, a case of BP winning the optics game BTW.)
It’s one thing to force BP to pay for everything, it’s quite another to cede the handling of the crisis and cleanup to them, which certainly seems to be the case based on what locals are reporting from the scene.
In short, Obama, by ceding most immediate control to BP in a clearly federal issue, is abrogating his authority in this matter. Most people outside this blog can see this, and it understandably angers them.
(See the case of BP refusing to use the EPA-ordered dispersant. This is not just an optics issue, this is an actual management issue.)
Convening a panel of scientists is just one thing he did that he should have done. Bottom line, one publicly and privately uncompromised person needs to be on the scene 24/7 who is in charge of the entire federal effort and who can force the Coast Guard to work for the government and not for BP.
Thad Allen must not and cannot continue to be that person.
I realize this won’t be enough for you. That’s fine, I won’t be coming back here. In all candor I’ve had quite enough and will leave you all be.
slag
@Davis X. Machina:
Maybe.
But if Jim J can answer, specifically, what he would have preferred to hear instead of the statement to which he objected, then I think he should be taken seriously.
If someone (anyone, really) can offer a better solution to a problem then I tend to take them seriously.
Allison W.
@BlizzardOfOz:
it’s funny when people think they are independent thinkers and more enlightened than others. bush’s 3rd term? yep, truly an original and independent view point. No cut and paste talking point there.
Tom Q
I know others have more or less said this already, but, to summarize Jim J’s take:
Obama should be doing more. When asked to specify what, I will bob and weave, say it’s so obvious I don’t have to explain, and then attack everyone asking me this by accusing them of attacking me on a personal basis.
There’s a real simple way to stop this, Jim J. List those those things Obama should be doing that he’s not– that mythical omnipresent laundry list you claim exists. To-the-point answers have a way of winning arguments. The fact that you consistently pass up opportunities to make such arguments suggest to many of us that you don’t possess such answers, and are just whining.
slag
@Jim J: You’re making this too complicated. You said this:
which is a concern about a specific statement. I asked you for a solution to your complaint. It’s your complaint. You brought it up. It shouldn’t be hard for you to say specifically what you would have preferred to hear instead of that statement.
If you can’t do that one simple task, then you should consider bringing some more humility to your other sundry assessments.
Jim J
@Tom Q: See above, thanks for reading.
scav
Spike in traffic at theOilDrum is pretty strong evidence to my eyes at least that there is at least some “market” for tech-heavy discussion of the complexity of the situation, moreover, an unmet market because they’re not finding it in the existing optics heavy channels.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jim J: Very strange that you left that until your last post, because it actually contained concrete claims for a change, rather than generalizations and vague unsupported charges of incompetence or of failures in manipulating public perception the right way.
I disagree with things in it but it was a reasonable post, and just so you know, the lack of all that was what people were being critical about.
While we’re at it, Joan Walsh, who I often disagree with, has a good piece more or less agreeing with the majority here.
http://mobile.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/05/28/is_obama_feeling_gulfs_pain/index.html
MikeJ
I like what Rumproast has to say:
Nick
@Jim J: Look Jim, you seem to agree with the majority on this, that’s fine, I don’t, stop trying to convince me I should agree with the majority simply because they’re the majority. I’m not. You sound like those anti-gay marriage votes who are like “Most people don’t agree with gay marriage, so you should just forget it”
robertdsc
My understanding is that this is the situation because that is what the law enacted after the Exxon Valdez spill calls for.
But let’s say you’re right. What happens when the feds take over? Who in the federal government has the tools and capabilities to plug a damaged oil well in 5000 feet of water? Is there such a federal agency to do this? Can you tell us who would do it?
Enceladus
In Noonan’s world, all Obama needs to do is run somewhere with his shirtsleeves rolled up and ask, “Where’s Sally?”
I wish James Cagney were still alive so I could see him squash a grapefruit into her smug, simpering face.
Mnemosyne
@Jim J:
Actually, he doesn’t. Congress has the power to change it, but the president cannot override legislation passed by Congress. Which I know was already explained to you ad infinitum in the other threads, but it just doesn’t seem to register for you.
scav
I’m still wrestling with this:
Transfer to the waiting room in a hospital. Which would you rather have. Gowned official comes out.
A) “I’m sorry ma’am. I have to tell you he’s been seriously wounded. We’ve got our best surgeon on it.”
B) He bursts into tears and sobs on your shoulder. “My little brother had the same thing!”
But, then again, I’m apparently only visiting this planet.
Elie
@J sub D:
Man, then put some skin in it! Rather than banging the key boards, why don’t YOU get up off your ass and start changing people from what YOU do at the grassroots. Not doing much, eh? Well then STFU. This is reality, not your magic pony show. And who says that just because YOU didnt get what YOU think is the priority, that everyone else feels similarly? You want to be king? Call all the shots your way? Then start your own revolution, lazy bones — do the actual work instead of the easy critique thing….
People like you are destructive and lazy. YOU want to mail it in and let others do the heavy lifting. Except banging your gums, nothing else happens
Bill E Pilgrim
@Enceladus: I just got to Noonan’s piece today, and what made me laugh right out loud was the part in which she claimed that this was just another political failure of three or four, the first being “the health care bill”.
She saw that as a political failure for Obama. Really.
There are so many valid criticisms of the Obama administration IMO, but my god are these people out of their minds.
Royce
@BlizzardOfOz:
Sure it’s not like Reagan’s 6th term.?
And what the Obama administration could do is replace BP’s top executives and have a stronger investigation … and also Transocean … and Haliburton … oh. I see.
I do wonder about all the focus is on Obama. The whole event seems like a furtive act of war against the nation by these corporations, but then, I’m, well, still human. (For what it’s worth, that particular weakness seems to go away once you’re sufficiently wealthy and powerful. Or if someone pays you to lie maybe.)
ruemara
@Jim J:
Fine, that took a while for you to detail what you think should be done.
…hands-off attitude toward BP, which continues to lie and misrepresent, as corporations will do.
This hands-off attitude includes BP’s obvious coopting of Thad Allen and the Coast Guard, i.e., USCG threatening to arrest photogs, misinformation regarding Top Kill, etc.
Yes, it’s “optics” but in this case it’s also the public’s right to know what’s happening to a public resource.
I’m not sure how Obama is responsible for being lied to. Are you saying that if he terrified people more, the lies would stop? As far as right to know, you are aware that the reason you get all these new pictures and video feeds is because your gov said they had no right to cut off information? There are still safety concerns right on the spill site, where I doubt any clear info will come out until the government decides to push BP out of the way, if they feel that’s necessary. As far as “optics”, I heard the AP describe the friday trip down to LA as the president’s first trip in 38 days. Is he responsible for the optics of that?
…oceans are federal territory, beaches are publicly owned to the high-water line, the USCG is a federal entity. Yes, yes, yes, it’s federal.…BP is not only in charge of technical aspects of the leak, but apparently of the entire crisis response. It didn’t have to be this way, and the president has the power to change this.
…
It’s one thing to force BP to pay for everything, it’s quite another to cede the handling of the crisis and cleanup to them, … Obama, by ceding most immediate control to BP in a clearly federal issue, is abrogating his authority in this matter.
This is the way the law works. They break it, they bought the right to clean it up. America may not protect it’s morals, but that rule of law for corporations is sacred. If you want the government to begin temporarily nationalizing BP’s tools, resources and personnel, that should be interesting. To say the least.
(See the case of BP refusing to use the EPA-ordered dispersant. This is not just an optics issue, this is an actual management issue.)
BP’s position is that the techniques they’re using work better if the oil is not on the surface, plus it’s all top secret, the EPA (rightly) thinks that’s bupkus and is gearing up for a court battle. This is 2 competing organizations at work at a shared incident scene. If you think that the response should be more aggressive, fine, but the EPA is not known for much besides cease & desist then sue. I agree they should not be allowed to do this, there seem to be much less toxic methods and that they focused on capping, when they should have focused on containing. There, now blame Obama, because the buck does stop with him.
…one publicly and privately uncompromised person needs to be on the scene 24/7 who is in charge of the entire federal effort and who can force the Coast Guard to work for the government and not for BP.
Thad Allen must not and cannot continue to be that person.
Yet, Thad Allen is that person and it seems that if he isn’t railing against the company he has to work with, he’s compromised. If someone new is appointed, should they have to maintain an aggressive tone to be seen as “publicly & privately uncompromised”? Is the presence of DOI Deputy Secretary Hayes in his oversight role compromised?
That’s fine, I won’t be coming back here. In all candor I’ve had quite enough and will leave you all be.
Bye.
WereBear
So true. What I meant to do in that comment was pointing out the Third Party Fallacy; though I was not actually doing so… so I’ll do it here.
Third Parties are Fantasies.
Our government is not a parliamentary system; it is an adversarial system. Just like our system of justice is not a fact finding system; it is an adversarial system.
You can like that, or not, since This Is America! We can discuss the pros and cons and work on reforming the system, since This Is America! But the one thing you cannot do is pretend the system is something it is not; this is Reality.
Work for your third party, enjoy your third party, and even fantasize about your third party. This can nudge what is known as the Actual Parties Who Have A Prayer of Winning.
But when you are standing in the voting booth, vote for the candidate in the Actual Parties Who Have A Prayer of Winning, or your complaining rights are not properly licensed.
Emma
JimJ: I am going to take you at your word that you’re not a puma or a republican troll.
The United State DOES NOT have the kind of equipment needed to deal with this. No democratic government on Earth does. Yes, the Russians do. They used to be a communist country where the means of production were state-owned. So do the Chinese, probably. The only people who have the tools to deal with this are the oil companies. Blame it on capitalism. I suppose the president could nationalize BP. Think on the optics of that for a while.
There’s also the legal mess. After the Valdiz, a law was passed that said that the oil company causing the spill is responsible for the cleanup. Sure, the President could set the law aside. Besides the little problem discussed in paragraph one, there’s the problem that in the aftermath of any takeover by the goverment, BP would have a case that since they were stopped from doing the work, they have less legal responsibility for it. Yes, you can probably rewrite the laws. Look at Congress and tell me what makes you think the Senate would be willing to do that.
As a first generation immigrant, I am fascinated by the way Americans see their government. They consider it both incompetent and all-powerful, a drooling moron that can’t get anything right and a supergenius that can solve any problem. They want the government to provide them the means by which they can make believe they’re not dependent on the government.
There are going to be hundreds if not thousands of future psychohistorians trying to explain the madness.
Mnemosyne
G reminded me yesterday that Peggy Noonan was the writer who came up with that famous “joke” of Reagan’s that the scariest words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”
Thanks, Peggy. We’re stuck living in the world you created and now you’re bitching that it’s not up to your standards. Fuck. You.
Cat Lady
Fixed cuz it works that way too. Also.
J sub D
@Elie: I just spent 4+ years trying to prevent the corrupt Kwame Kilpatrick and most of an incompetent self serving city council (google Monica Conyers, Martha Reeves and Alonzo Bates for fun) from killing my hometown.
Oh, you had a Hope and Change bumper sticker? I bow to your moral superiority.
slag
@Mnemosyne: Seriously. She’s practically a joke that tells itself now: “I blame the government! No, I blame the business! The government! The business! Oh, I don’t know…Just keep walking.”
Pamela F
@Jim J: Jim J, Oh Snap!
debbie
No it’s not. It’s a criminal problem, and a major one. Listen to this item from NPR’s Saturday Morning Edition:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127257138&ft=1&f=1006
Among other things, Markey points to a report from BP which assured the government that they had the capacity to handle a spill of up to 250,000 gallons a day.
I’d have liked Obama to use stronger language at the press conference when he said he’d been wrong to rely on BP after the spill, but at least he’s said it. BP’s behavior has been criminal after the spill, and it was criminal before the spill, even when it applied for the license to drill.
I’m tired of all this Obama-bashing. Name one politician who would be as forthright as Obama has been since this began.
J sub D
The following is a complete list of US Presidents who weren’t continually bashed, both fairly and unfairly, by the press.
[list]
G. Washington
[/list]
Get used to it. When you’re the star of the team you’re going to get booed sometimes. ;-)
de stijl
@slag: , et al
I’m trying to figure out why J sub D’s Barr vote provoked such a vicious response.
patroclus
If a pollster asked me today whether I approve of President Obama’s handling of the disastrous oil leak, I would say no. If a pollster were to ask me the same question the day after the leak is plugged, I would say yes. To me, results matter; optics far less so. I want the leak plugged. NOW.
So I guess I’m in JimJ’s camp although I haven’t agreed with any of his multiple posts so far. I certainly don’t have a laundry list of suggestions and would be skeptical of anyone who said they had one.
Davis X. Machina
@de stijl:Barr is likely to cause spontaneous rejection in hosts for a number of reasons, starting with his role in Clinton Impeachment, as well as a host of other things, like his 180º on medical marijuana — from staunch opponent to lobbyist. Or his co-authoring of DOMA, before supporting its repeal. Ditto Iraq. Ditto the PATRIOT act. Ditto damn near every policy position he held when in power, and now.
I understand political deathbead conversions, but this guy has to borrow other people’s corpses just to handle the volume of conversions he’s had. I understand chameleons, but a chameleon that can turn himself plaid is just showing off.
slag
@de stijl: It’s a copout. Akin to digging a foxhole from which you can safely lob grenades. A means of seeming involved without having the responsibility of being involved. Complaining when someone can’t solve all our problems while voting for someone who can’t even win an election is absurd. And saying you’re going to hold your nose while doing it makes it even more absurd.
The reason people get so enchanted with third parties is that third party candidates often don’t get the same level of scrutiny that candidates from major parties get. Everybody looks attractive from far away. And yet third party lovers like to think of themselves as being so clear-eyed. Too hip to be square. All I can think is: Go back to high school.
Bill E Pilgrim
@patroclus:
The one thing that everyone here seems to agree about, even Jim J, is that Barack Obama can’t stop the leak.
Except you, it seems.
Ailuridae
Ì’m going to repost something I wrote in a different thread largely because I want to address a point Mnemosyne made in response.
I’m pretty sympathetic to the President in most spots but here there really was a kind of glibertarian/libertard stupidity to his stance on the expansion (and continuation) of off-shore drilling. Maddow did an excellent piece on the similarities between Ixtoc 1 in 1979 and the Deepwater Horizon mess. Here is an excellent piece on it from the Miami Herald with the following money quote:
“Everybody keeps saying the spill in the Gulf is unprecedented,’’ said geologist John Amos, president and founder of SkyTruth, a nonprofit that investigates environmental issues using satellite images. “That is such bull——t. We had perfect precedence.’‘
The President is a bright guy and thinks things through well. But in this case he either tried to score cheep political points by ignoring the obvious, indisputable dangers of off-shore drilling or he was unaware of them. Either way, he was simply, plainly wrong.
And, no it doesn’t make a difference that none of the previous Presidents also did nothing to be honest with the America people about the dangers of off-shore drilling. And given those dangers and the history of fixing off shore leaks (besides drilling new wells 6-9 months later basically nothing has shown to be consistently effective) it was his job as President to establish a set of procedures that could adequately address those dangers. And, if that couldn’t be done (which a whole lot of people think to be the case) then he should haveput a moratorium on off-shore drilling until such time as either the companies themselves or the government or Dean fucking Kamen could come up with a solution.
That, above, is the extent of my frustration with the President. There was simply no evidence that oil companies could do anything to stop a gushing well other than a relief well. This was, to paraphrase a great America, a “known known”. It might not have a been a popular position and even within the small community of vocal critics of off-shore drilling it probably accounts for less than 25% of those folks’ opposition but it was also undeniably, indisputably correct.
If there is a positive to come out of this it is that the future debates about off-shore drilling no longer have a substantial portion of the electorate as an ignorant middle with competing claims from TRBC and oil company shills which both seem plausible. The public now knows that neither the government nor private industry has absolutely no ability to do anything in response to an ocean oil leak except drill a relief well and that takes months. And with that knowledge you’ll see public opinion in favor of off-shore drilling to continue to erode.
Mnemosyne
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I don’t think that’s what patroclus is saying. I think it’s closer to what I was saying above: people are going to be pissed off at Obama until the leak is closed because it’s easier to be pissed at the president than it is to be pissed at the board of directors of BP. He’s a very convenient focus for the rage people are feeling right now.
I have a feeling that public opinion is going to change once the actual leak is stopped and all of the other things that were set in motion by the feds immediately after it started become obvious. Right now, no amount of federal investigators are going to change the fact that there’s a goddamn oil leak in the Gulf, so people aren’t going to care that they were sent down right away. They won’t appreciate that until the leak is stopped.
J sub D
@slag:
You keep playing that left-right one dimensional beltway game. It’s been working out so well. After all, we’re only involved in two bipartisan wars at a cost of trillions with thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands maimed, no end in sight and only a pipe dream of multiparty democracies emerging in Afghanistan and Iraq as a positive.
I refuse to give an endorsement to a candidate that I fundamentally disagree with just because they have the endorsement of a major party.
Catholic or Protestant? Pick one as there are no other serious options. Look at the numbers.
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
I think we mostly agree, though. I thought it was stupid from the beginning that he backed down on new offshore drilling — it was so obviously political pandering. So I did have a small, sneaky “toldyaso!” feeling when it first happened.
The one thing Obama has going for him is that, unlike the previous administration, he’s willing to change direction based on new information. And, yes, I’m enough of an Obot to think that there will be actual changes in how we oversee the oil industry, especially since those changes don’t need Congressional approval, thankfully.
Salazar’s probably a goner. He’s not going to be fired until after the leak is sealed or the relief wells start working, but his days are numbered after a ginormous fuckup like this.
slag
@J sub D:
Neither religion makes decisions on my behalf. Republicans and Democrats do.
But then again, I don’t treat my political participation like a Holy War. Which you obviously do.
So, please, give your “endorsement” to only the person who truly deserves it so you at least won’t have to hold your nose. I would suggest the Pope as a viable candidate, but well…
Bill E Pilgrim
@Mnemosyne: I agree with what you’re saying but it’s not what patroclus wrote, which was that patroclus disapproves of Obama because the leak is not plugged, and that will change entirely once it’s fixed.
You’re claiming that “people will be pissed”, but that’s different from saying that you’re one of them. Especially when you look at the above, which basically says “Obama is clearly doing everything wrong now, yet once it’s fixed I won’t believe that anymore.”
de stijl
@Davis X. Machina:
@slag:
I’m not a Barr voter or defender, it just seemed to me a strangely disproportionate response to someone who basically said “Obama is doing a fairly decent job dealing with the spill (even though I didn’t vote for him.)”
patroclus
Mneymosyne, indeed – nice reading comprehension!
Bill E. Pilgrim, what I wrote was how I would respond if asked by a pollster. What you read was something far different than what I wrote. To put it more plainly: I would LIE to the pollster in order to put more pressure on Obama to put more pressure on BP and others to get the leak plugged. After the leak is plugged, I would be honest.
So, when JimJ claims that a large majority of Americans actually disapproves of the POTUS for the reasons he stated, he is not accounting for those like me that don’t really disapprove of Obama but would answer pollsters questions as if I did. Mneymosyne understood this; you didn’t.
Allison W.
omg! Dana Milbank is saying Obama took too much responsibility for the spill at the press conference. Omg! omg! I am going to throttle the media.
The Left, the media and the Right seems to be obsessed with who has the biggest balls. Who can be the biggest a-hole to their opponents. Sigh….we get the government we deserve.
Mnemosyne
@Allison W.:
I think asiangrrlMN has some rusty garden implements you can borrow when you run amok.
slightly_peeved
Wow, people are claiming Obama’s completely screwed something up, and then in time it turns out he’s actually done things in a sensible and competent manner? I certainly haven’t seen that happen over the last 2 years.
Karen
@MikeJ:
YES!! Rumproast and Mike J that is a huge part of Obama’s “optics.”
Obama makes a big effort to create a race-free impression. The GOP makes a big effort to make it all about his race. It’s no coincidence that guns and ammunition purchases shot up big time the day after Obama was elected. Hillary Clinton is a fantastic SOS but she even said that Obama was “unelectable” and that no white people would elect him in Pennsylvania. After the backlash, she amended it to “real working people.” Berg, the first guy to sue Obama and say he wasn’t a real citizen which meant he couldn’t be President, was a good friend of Hillary Clinton. Suddenly people who had been Democrats all their life suddenly told the Democratic Party Unity My Ass.
I really believe Barack Obama has so much hatred because he is the antithesis of all stereotypes people had of African Americans. Educated and brilliant, a great and hands on father and dedicated and loving to his wife, who is also educated.
He has to be perfect so he can be knocked down. And being perfect means he cannot lose his temper. Otherwise he’ll be just another “angry black man.”