If ever there was a test of President Obama’s vision of government — one that cannot solve all problems, but does what people cannot do for themselves — it is this nerve-racking early summer of 2010, with oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and far too many Americans out of work for far too long.
The country is frustrated and apprehensive and still waiting for Mr. Obama to put his vision into action.
The president cannot plug the leak or magically clean up the fouled Gulf of Mexico. But he and his administration need to do a lot more to show they are on top of this mess, and not perpetually behind the curve.
Shorter NY Times Editorial Board: “There isn’t much Obama can do about the oil spill, but he should be doing more of it!”
Why aren’t I paid a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to spew inanities?
Davis X. Machina
Shorter shorter: The food is terrible there — and the portions are so small!
maye
Managing the media is part of governing. It is the job of the Obama communications team to give the media a new shiny object to look at each and every day. They are not doing that. They need creative, agressive Madison Ave. types who can stay out in front of the 24/7 propaganda machine day after sucky day.
It’s the PR stupid.
Short Bus Bully
Just like high school. Keep the focus on who is wearing the right kind of clothes and who throws the cool parties. Also. Too.
maye
aggressive might have two g-s
adavis
Because YOU didn’t go to an Ivy League school.
maye
@adavis: no, but I paid top dollar for the crappy education I did get.
JenJen
@Davis X. Machina: Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded! ;-)
scav
Those narratives don’t build themselves, yah know.
Hey! Can somebody buy the media a cute little hanging crib toy with easy to grab narratives so they’ll shut up for a bit! Bright primary colors please and don’t forget an off switch. Thanks. I’d do it myself but I don’t have a car.
Cacti
An even shorter summation…
“There’s nothing he can do, but he should do more.”
The NYT editorial board should look up “Non Sequitur”.
Mr Furious
Because your inanities aren’t inane enough to warrant more than a modest click-through check. You have to pay top dollar for idiots that good.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Not to worry. I even heard Brit Hume lament this morning that all the polls, including Rasmussen, the wingnut orb, show no sign the public is blaming Obama for any of it. Bp, yes, the administration, not so much. Let em wank, the pointy headed fools.
El Cid
Okay, that part may be stupid, but I think they’re actually using the subject of the Gulf spill to push a different message.
Look at the next paragraphs:
That’s a very different message than ‘be louder when you visit the Gulf’.
The New York Times has joined the crowd becoming aware of how the awful deficit / debt ‘hawk’ austerity fetishists are seeking to damage the economy further.
That they embed this sort of discussion within stuff about how to appear more on top of things is standard idiocy, but, on the plus side, it’s a bit more than a fee-fee rant. The fee-fee part is unfortunate, but there you go.
Mumphrey
I guess these clowns don’t understand that, as important as the oil spill and the economy are, there are a lot of other things going on that Obama needs to be on top of as well, even if they aren’t as dramatic. If he spent his time finding ways to impress the press with his super-awesome presidenting powers, that would leave him with less time to do his job.
I”ve always been against the death penalty, so I’m not going to suggest putting all the press to death, but maybe we could deport them to Iran, maybe. China would be good. Then they can foul up the workings of a government we don’t like anyway.
SiubhanDuinne
In the meantime, I just got an email from a younger brother who has always been apolitical but is now on some kind of Obama hatewagon. This was a series of photos of the last five preznits at press conferences or giving speeches, at least some event involving microphones. And *Oh Horror*! Obama alone along the five does not share the stage with an American flag (or a huge array of flags in GWB’s instance). Normally I would just delete, ignore and forget, but I have chosen to search image archives to find photos that capture Reagan, GHWB, Clinton and Shrub with no flag in the picture but with a mic or prompter — *and* one of Obama with a big ol’ honkin’ Murrican flag behind or beside him.
Not sure why my brother thinks it’s a good idea to wind me up like this. It was one thing when he was 9 and I was 12, but we’re in our late 60s now.
r€nato
Maybe Obama could get behind the stick of a Navy jet, drop a few bombs on the spill and then land on a strategically-placed-for-maximum-visual-impact aircraft carrier, then strut around in his crotchily-enhanced fighter jock suit with a big banner reading, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”. I hear they really are impressed by that kind of shit.
maye
The White House can’t control all the simultaneous disasters, but with a little effort, they can control the media. They’re not even trying. Obama has a third rate communications team that came over from the campaign. They were fine for the campaign (their guy won) but this is a whole different level of media strategy. They need new blood, new ideas and a do-or-die sense of urgency. And they need it every single day.
peach flavored shampoo
I’m wholly amused by the complete and utter disconnect of all the Republicans (read: S. La voters) demanding “states rights, bitches!”, small govt, less federal intrusion in their life, then screaming “where’s my govt to fix this oil problem?”
The blatant hypocrisy would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
Elisabeth
I was one of those who, in the beginning, was very critical of doing photo ops for the sake of doing photo ops. I still am, however…
I think there is certainly more the president can be doing in the public eye in a more timely manner to look like he is paying attention to the disaster. Too often it seems he is playing defense instead of offense.
He made one initial trip to the Gulf early on. He then made a second trip when the criticism was that he wasn’t involved enough. He took media questions after the criticism that he wasn’t on top of the disaster. Folks have said he needs to make more than a one-day trip to the Gulf – sure enough he’s going for two days this coming week. Sarah Palin of all people criticized the president for not talking to the CEO of BP. Guess what? A letter has gone out summoning BP executives to the White House.
Thad Allen is holding daily press briefings which is fine but EPA and/or NOAA and whatever other government officials should hold daily or weekly pressers to tell what’s going on from different points of view.
maye
@r€nato: And that ying yang got reelected and his policies got carried out.
scav
I’m just enjoying my image of the media as spoon-fed cranky infants throwing food and faeces about the place. Mewling pukers would whine no matter what anyone did and imagine it a meaningful contribution to the conversation.
Linda Featheringill
Speaking of oil in the Gulf:
This was posted on The Oil Drum at 3 in the morning or so by a guy named dougr. It is technical at times but you should be able to understand enough of it to allow it to give you nightmares.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967
I posted [on TOD] a request for the pros to show where dougr is mistaken. We will see if any of them can do this.
And I always thought that “reality sucks” was just a clever little saying.
cleek
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
no, the public doesn’t blame Obama for the spill. but they do dislike his handling of it. and they’re dissatisfaction gets bigger, with each new poll.
like it or not, this is hurting Obama, and the media is not to blame.
Jennifer
Aw, Cole, quit yer bitchin’. You too can have one of those media jobs that pay high salaries for knowing nothing. The Atlantic is looking for the next Tom Friedman – if you can just dumb it down a whole lot, you might have a shot.
Mr Furious
@Elisabeth: I would definitely agree that Obama blew the optics on this whole event. Starting with attending the Correspondents dinner that first Saturday night. He’s lucky it didn’t become his “Bush with the birthday cake and guitar moment”—especially considering how hard the some tried to make this his Katrina.
I personally feel like unnecessary POTUS photo ops are more harm than good in many ways—particularly in ongoing situations like this. Every time Obama goes to the Gulf, he becomes a traveling ten-mile-radius circle of nothing else getting done.
But the VISIBLE sense of urgency was lacking early enough, and his natural tendency to wait a beat to long, or fear of going to far out on a limb and looking less-than bipartisan resulted in a missed opportunity to claim a more effective bully pulpit on the issue.
I think in almost ALL respects, the response to this disaster has been tempered because of the poorly timed vocal support for drilling in the weeks preceding the blowout: If Obama didn’t have that baggage immediately hung around his neck, it might have one down differently.
I’m not sure whether or not that’s comforting to me, or reflects better or worse on him and his team.
Emma
SiubhanDuinne: That’s similar to what’s happened to me with an old and valued family friend. Sometimes I answer, most time I delete. You can’t waste your time, they aren’t hearing anything but the voices in their heads.
And it amuses me how many people say he should do something to change the press’s narrative. Don’t you get it? They won’t. They have already decided what they’re going to say and no matter what he does, they will say what they have already settled on.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: And a Sunday morning El Cid Special Report from Bloomberg:
Production Probably Rose, Prices Fell
*It’s funny because their mobile version has the words “Without Inflation” in the title
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@cleek: Obama’s overall approval has not changed much at all since the spill occurred, If anything it has gone up. I haven’t been all that happy how they initially handled it myself, especially politically. Too hands off, or giving that impression anyways. He is taking measures now that will improve his standing, like creating an escrow account from BP, and have an outside entity process claims faster, he is meeting with BP officials, the governors of the region next week, and giving a prime time address to the country on Tuesday. Unless gas prices go up or in some other way the country outside the gulf feels some personal pain, there disapproval of the governments handling the thing will not hurt their overall approval of Obama, which is what counts.
Obama’s electoral problem and that of dems is jobs jobs jobs, and that will determine the next election, that and how the country reacts to tea party craziness that should reach critical mass in the near future.
Plus, until the well is capped, everyone is on a downer about it.
Sanka
@r€nato:
He already did some of that…..to announce his decision to open up offshore oil drilling.
A month before Deepwater Horizon went down:
But we still need to find someone’s a.ss to kick. Also.
Clearly this is Sarah Palin’s fault.
Davis X. Machina
Oops. Someone’s going to pay for that. The Pain Caucus wants to watch its morality play from its expensive front-row seats now and god help anyone who gets in their highly compensated way.
Elisabeth
@Mr Furious:
He could have taken his lumps on that ill-timed drilling announcement and declared he might have been mistaken. Or that he supported more drilling in shallower water or that he supported more deepwater drilling once he and the experts were convinced it was safer than it is now.
Or, he could have used the explosion to show why drilling in areas where we don’t know what the heck we’re doing is a really bad idea.
I certainly don’t want the president operating a skimming boat in the Gulf or being seen cleaning a bird as a photo op but coming out early and often to tell us what the government is doing and why versus what BP is doing and why, and what the consequences will be would have been a really smart idea. I also can’t really blame the communications staff; Obama is smart and if he’s listening to them while ignoring his gut I’d be disappointed. I think, though, his own measured nature gets in the way.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne #14:
Good old Snopes came through:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/photos/pressconference.asp
I sent the link without comment to my brother (“Reply All,” heh, so about a dozen other people will also get it).
@Emma #25: I generally do ignore, but in this case I just felt compelled to set the record straight. Probably won’t do any good, but *I* feel better!
Corner Stone
@SiubhanDuinne: Two months from now you’ll get the same hate/rant.
You can book that.
I haven’t had the “Pelosi’s Plane” email forwarded to me in the last few months but I’m waiting.
maye
The press can be herded like sheep if you’ve got somewhere to take them – and a clever border collie.
It’s not Obama’s job to do it, but it is his responsibility to employ good sheep dogs.
malraux
@cleek: If the polls show that, then there’s not a lot Obama can do. The basic problem with the oil leak is the oil leak, which Obama can’t do much to stop or contain. Doing a lot to seem effectual can backfire because there’s not a lot effectual he can do. Regardless of Obama’s actions, oil is going to keep spilling and keep washing up, which undercuts rather directly any sort of messaging claims.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@maye: This is very good, can I steal it as a wise parable from maye?
FlipYrWhig
@Mr Furious:
IMHO there’s nothing to be gained by a “visible sense of urgency” if it doesn’t result in plugging the leak. In fact, I’d think that pounding the podium and demanding action would look _more_ impotent as the oil kept flowing.
More importantly, I don’t think that “bipartisanship” is the relevant political framework to how this has played out — but, perhaps relatedly, I think that he has been reluctant to be seen as “politicizing” the disaster. And activist Republicans are chomping at the bit to make the case that here we have another unanticipated disaster and again the result has been a “government takeover,” because that’s the tail wagging the GOP dog. Conservatives are doing a bit of a Naomi Klein “Shock Doctrine” in reverse, suggesting that Obama uses disasters to institute “socialism.” That whole conversation, once it comes out more into the open, could dominate the media — and, once again, it doesn’t do anything to close up the leak.
In other words, I think Obama’s handling of the situation suggests not that he wants to be “bipartisan” but that he’s choosing to be results-focused and pragmatic rather than crusading and ideological. None of which means you can’t say that his focus on results has been so far for shit.
FlipYrWhig
[Damnit, I said the S-word… sorry for duplication if this comes through twice.]
@Mr Furious:
IMHO there’s nothing to be gained by a “visible sense of urgency” if it doesn’t result in plugging the leak. In fact, I’d think that pounding the podium and demanding action would look more impotent as the oil kept flowing.
More importantly, I don’t think that “bipartisanship” is the relevant political framework to how this has played out—but, perhaps relatedly, I think that he has been reluctant to be seen as “politicizing” the disaster. And activist Republicans are chomping at the bit to make the case that here we have another unanticipated disaster and again the result has been a “government takeover,” because that’s the tail wagging the GOP dog. Conservatives are doing a bit of a Naomi Klein “Shock Doctrine” in reverse, suggesting that Obama uses disasters to institute “socializm.” That whole conversation, once it comes out more into the open, could dominate the media—and, once again, it doesn’t do anything to close up the leak.
In other words, I think Obama’s handling of the situation suggests not that he wants to be “bipartisan” but that he’s choosing to be results-focused and pragmatic rather than crusading and ideological. None of which means you can’t say that his focus on results has been so far for shit.
Mr Furious
@Corner Stone: Ugh. The Pelosi’s plane bullshit…
This spring, the free weekly birther rag in Asheville had a huge cover “exposé” on the $1.6 million trip Obama took to have a long weekend at the Grove Park Inn. As if the POTUS walking around the damn block isn’t costing taxpayers $10,000 an hour in security and everything else…
Just like the Pelosi’s plane stories were designed to make a mandatory military flight for the second-in-succession Speaker into some sort of transcontinental Kwame Kilpatrick party plane, this winger “reporter” tried to make a standard Presidential visit into some extravagant luxury trip complete with a taxpayer-funded personal appearance by Elton John.
SiubhanDuinne
@Corner Stone #32:
To my bro’s credit, as soon as I sent the Snopes link he sent a message back saying he could always count on me to get to the truth of a matter.
And another of the people sent the original message to (someone I don’t know) also responded to Reply All with one devastating line: “You’re drinking too much tea (if you know what I mean.” LOL, so perhaps there’s hope yet.
But of course you’re correct and something else will follow in a few weeks and it’ll be the same thing all over again.
FlipYrWhig
@Elisabeth:
Didn’t he specifically say that the incident shows that we need to explore alternative energy sources because we have already drilled the easy places and now all that’s left are the hard ones?
maye
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: only with a TM after it
demo woman
@SiubhanDuinne: The funniest email that I received was Snopes was run liberals and you should believe it.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@maye: You got it.
AhabTRuler
@JenJen: Nobody drives in the city; too much traffic.
Mr Furious
@FlipYrWhig: I agree in large part. I wouldn’t have necessarily wanted Obama to jump out and look ineffective—I think this calculation played heavily in their thinking: Is it a coincidence that Obama’s re-engagement in the Gulf came when the potential success of the Top Kill was about to unfold?
I think some of the perceived timidity in response was due to the calculated decision to avoid the conflict with his own position weeks earlier.
Also, my regret at his lack of visible response is not about “mission accomplished” or “git ‘r done” but a missed opportunity to drive the debate and effect energy policy.
Now that the damage and horror is showing up in photographs of fouled beaches, oil covered birds and dead sea turtles, there is another chance to take that step.
NOTE: I realize it is unseemly to speak of the political opportunities presented, but the reality is that if this horrible tragedy can end up making a positive impact on policy, that game needs to be played. The GOP is dealing those cards whether Obama antes or not, so he might as well go for it.
Nick
@FlipYrWhig:
a few THOUSAND times, but the media ignored him because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
Nick
@Mr Furious:
You mean POLITICIZING A TRAGEDY?!?!
Yes, that’s how we would’ve spinned it.
SW
If he does the same thing of trying to coddle us with BS propaganda images (and that’s what it is coddling, because what the NYTimes and others are saying is we know you’re doing everything you can, the public kinda knows it, but we still want you to put on a dog and pony show) then nothing can change.
Rather than relying on good old common sense, we will keep needing BS propaganda images in order to believe that things are getting done….which leaves us open to deception when a President (e.g. GW Bush Jr) uses said images to act as if something is done (MISSION ACCOMPLISHED) without anything ACTUALLY having been or having to be done.
Updates are being given every day. The facts of what’s been going on have been being delivered every day. It should be enough to just be able to see the facts as they are without the need for glitter, bright lights and other razzle dazzle crap every five minutes.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Mr Furious: I suspect, some genius in the WH unwisely advised him not to associate himself with BP by staying in the background. That could have worked if they had capped the well early on. But like we have seen obama do on other matters, at some point he sees the error and corrects it on his own instincts, and they are usually spot on, albeit sometimes late.
Elisabeth
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, he did. Thanks for the reminder. Of course, that rather gets lost when compared to the “let’s find other places to drill” announcement that also mentioned how rigs are much safer and technology is much better. As we’ve seen the rig technology might be better (I really can’t say) but the rig disaster relief technology still sucks.
maye
YES !!! For Gawds sake!
Elisabeth
@Nick:
So what? The media will spin it whatever way they want; the GOP will say whatever they want to say. He’s damned if he does; damned if he doesn’t. Might as well be damned doing the right thing.
RinaX
And, conversely, I don’t think he in any way missed any opportunity to do this. Like others mentioned above, he has been talking about the need to change how we get our energy quite a bit at different stops over the past six weeks since this began, but that’s not what’s being covered. And with all of the rocks being overturned (rightly) about the lack of progress at the MMS this week and how that contributed to BP’s lax controls that led to this disaster, he can now go on TV Tuesday night and address everything all at once. I’m glad for the Time and Rolling Stone pieces (even though I had some issues with the latter) and all of the other stuff coming out now so that he can take it all on in prime time instead of having that other shoe drop after he’s given his speech.
FlipYrWhig
@Mr Furious:
He did recant the substance of that comment, though, when he talked about how one of his mistakes was in believing that the oil companies really had made the safety advances they had persuaded him about. But I agree that it’s difficult to say “shut down deep-sea drilling” when the states getting hammered by the disaster also have swathes of their economies devoted to oil — and when Louisiana still suffers from Katrina on top of everything else. I think it’s a difficult needle to thread.
FlipYrWhig
@Elisabeth:
True, but he already vocally renounced that statement when he said he had erred in believing industry hype about safety. That was part of the appearance where he said the responsibility ultimately rested with him.
Person of Choler
Well, for one thing, the Big O could get more oil skimming ships working by issuing an administrative exemption to the Jones act. George Bush, as stupid as he is, figured out how to do that when he was wrecking the Gulf Coast and drowning people post Katrina.
Of course, it would have been necessary for someone to have informed Emperor Ai Won that there was such a thing as a Jones Act, pointed out its effect on slowing down oil capture, and suggest that there was something he could do about it.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I will say, moratorium or not on deep water drilling, if Obama and the congressional dems do not not go all out to require all deep water drilling be also accompanied by a companion relief well, it will be a major failure, and leave open the certainty this will happen again, at some point in time. They will never be able to prevent sometimes cascading human and equipment failure from occurring at these depths, or any. They can be sane and do what the Canucks and Norwegians, and a few others do, and that is have the ability to about certainly cap these things shortly after they occur.
Mr Furious
@FlipYrWhig:
Absolutely. The biggest mistake he made was long before the spill—it was the preemptive cave on drilling to make a bipartisan appeal to Lindsay Graham who even in the face of oil possibly washing into Charleston Harbor at some point was still comfortable screwing Obama on the Energy Bill.
If he had not made that announcement, he would have been standing on much higher ground regarding this whole thing—to say nothing of the fact that it was a stupidly presented* position on it’s own merits.
*Obama’s announcement was not to actually open areas to drilling, but to allow exploration. But that was never communicated properly. In retrospect, however, failure to deal with MMS would have probably had the same result, exploration, flawed studies, rubber-stamped permits, and drilling unencumbered.
ruemara
@Linda Featheringill:
Thanks for that. I needed to lose my appetite.
Mr Furious
THIS. A thousand times.
In fact, the first time I ever heard this idea was in a thread here at BJ. Since then it pops up in articles and blogs some, but I have yet to hear it from any pundit, anchor or politician’s mouth. It is the absolute bare minimum change that needs to come into effect—ASAP.
Any existing deepwater rig should have to begin work on a relief well before they pump another barrel, and no new rig should be able to power-up without one.
Elisabeth
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/12/fareed-zakaria-criticizes_n_610238.html
Allison W.
Nothing he can do, but he can do more.
Don’t like when the WH tries to control the press, but Obama should learn to control the press
Don’t blame him for the spill, but don’t like how he’s handling it – not enough optics, but we don’t like optics, all politicians do is just talk and do photo-ops. We need Obama to do more of that.
Obama isn’t doing enough or nothing, but no one knows what else he should do. Oh wait, NUKE IT!!! HANG ‘EM!!!
Just last night I read that the administration sent a letter to the oil company that they must come up with a better plan in 48 hours for oil containment. by the way, don’t poo poo sternly worded letters because it worked with insurance companies who were trying to get around the ‘children with preconditions’ law. The oil company, at the urging of the do nothing White House is postponing their dividend payouts until they see how much the spill MIGHT cost. The MMS is being cleaned up, but not publicly (apparently that was a problem for someone here). Obama is using the spill to remind us that we need to get on clean energy pronto. Hes called out the GOP for their hypocrisy, he’s called out the media (more than twice) for their hunger for drama and the DOJ has been down there long ago. He met with the families of the 11 people who died in the explosion – funny how so many people were more concerned with the animals and Obama’s PR more than they were with the 11 people that died. Even those family members were more understanding and patient with the president than the rest of his critics. And how come no one is talking about that “Gulf Recovery Act” rumor that’s been circulating around the internets? Sully mentioned it on his blog – http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/a-gulf-recovery-act.html
And while all these people were tap tap tapping on their keyboard yesterday that Obama needs to do more, he was meeting with his (oil spill) team — on a Saturday.
In any case, the WH and most members of Congress reads the NYT so I hope they get the underlying message of the article that another reader pointed out.
Allison W.
@Mr Furious:
Really? that was his biggest mistake? Not seeing that an oil spill would occur so shortly after he ok’d offshore drilling? Even though he said he would consider it while he was campaigning for president? That was his biggest mistake?
Again. All people are focused on is the optics. geesh.
RinaX
@Allison W.:
I tried to pick out just one thing to quote, but it was all too good.
@Mr Furious:
Definitely agree. I’d much rather the press (and blogs) be pushing options like this particularly in light of the Administration unrolling their plan next week.
Mr Furious
@Allison W.: No, his mistake was yet again ceding ground to Republicans in a futile attempt to garner bipartisan support.
That this blowout happened shortly thereafter is simply a horrible coincidence that put him on the defensive when he might have been able to react more aggressively.
Even if this blowout never happened, I disagree with his decision to compromise too early in every piece of major legislation.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: That article helped me understand that our biggest problem right now is inflation which is caused by all da spendin’.
Sat
Have we tried raising the oil leak’s taxes? That should make it mad enough to at least threaten to leave, if not seriously consider leaving.
kgrant1073
I truly don’t think it matters what Obama says or does. He doesn’t win news cycles, ever. It just doesn’t happen. When was the last time Obama had a good week of treatment from the press? I can’t think of one. Stimulus passes? Health care reform actually passes? Maybe a day or two, but then it is right back to the murk.
Thus, even if he had the most brilliant PR strategy in all of human history, the usual suspects would be either be screaming about soshulism from the rooftops or peddling their standard concern troll crapola.
I really don’t get the mainstream media – they don’t hate the guy, I think that much is clear (well, maybe, I still think they resent his sudden rise to the top of the power structure, and are afraid of his intelligence), but they certainly like to tut-tut about every single thing he does (hmm, maybe it is all connected).
He could balance the budget, cure cancer, shrink unemployment down to .5 percent, and find a cheap and efficient renewable energy source – and it still would garner him petulant whining from the press.
ruemara
I’ve been sifting compost for the past hour, while you’ve been sifting manure. What if we came up with what new legislation should say and then, sent it to our respective representatives? That’s something to do. I’m gonna go back out and plant more eggplants. and a 5th round of seeding carrots. pray for me.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Sorry, I don’t agree with the premise of this thread.
Speaking as a card-carrying Obot, I think the administration’s handling of the oil spill has been just plain stupid from day one.
No, the people aren’t stupid enough to live up to blog fodder comments that suggest that the president can “fix” this problem. But they are smart enough to know that he could have put himself and his people in front of the problem, looked and acted like they were doing everything possible to help, and taken control of the news cycles so that their adversaries don’t have an opportunity to capitalize on the disaster. No Aquaman costume is required. What I am suggesting is actually pretty easy to do, and I have seen it done, right here in Arizona, recently, and by at least one person familiar to the snarkass blog crowd …. Janet Napolitano, who in two recent local crises showed exactly how to go about doing what I am talking about.
To add to the list of the administration’s failures …. we know that they have at least one person who knows how to take charge in a crisis, and that’s Janet Napolitano. So apparently this gang of potatoheads doesn’t even know how to use the talents of its own people. The crises I am talking about both made the national news, they were a gasoline product pipeline break causing a shortage of fuel coming into Phoenix, and a run on the gas stations, and a forest fire known as the Rodeo-Chediski fire of 2002. You can look them up. Even Barack Obama can fucking look them up.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Allison W.: Agree with most of this, and am delighted to see someone who appreciates and understands the inane art of politics and the empty calories of photo optics the public requires to stimulate their pea brains, like they do with a sugar rush of cotton candy at the county fair. It is silly, but required.
master c
MoDo with hurt feelings also too.
She wants respect!
Now.
Chat Noir
@peach flavored shampoo: I heard an interview on the radio late last week with a woman who’s family is in the shrimping business in southern Louisiana. The interviewer asked her if we should continue off shore drilling even after this disaster and she adamantly said we should. I mean, how do you even get through to these folks?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Please take down my moderated post at 68. I got a key fact wrong and don’t have time to research the correction.
thx
Elie
@Elisabeth:
I think that there is emotional confusion between really “doing something” and “looking like you are doing something”…
There is no easy fix for this. Those are the facts. No one can make that facts different or make us feel different… that is reality. We are adults and are being treated like adults rather than small willful children who need to be placated… There is no “there there now, it will be ok” message for this. That is what everyone wants, really.
The administration and BP are both in the thrall of the 24 hour news cycle. The administration and Federal government have to manage information as well as their political message. The deep, solid, valid data on progress is messy and many times conflicting and takes a while to sort through but the media is filled with reports of this scientist and that (“independent”) saying that BP, or the government or Obama are “lying” or there is some conspiracy to hide huge amounts of oil, or some horrible outcome. All the booms are not working and are untended. Nothing is going right. Nothing and nobody with the government, BP or Obama’s team is doing enough — they are all incompetent and lazy shills, to hear them tell it.
It is difficult to have to grow up when you have been indulged as a child too long and way too long our body politic has been an oversized adult “child” stuck in a high chair made of our rigid and too long indulged expectations. Eventually, we are going to fall over and maybe we will break out of it and learn to stand on our feet and see the world as it is — reality — not someone’s dream of reality.
There is no way to “manage” this. That is the truth. Forget the notion of some crack team that can make this all just fine. In fact, I dont want that at all. I want us to finally get a face full of not easy to fix reality. We need it desperately.
Montysano
@Linda Featheringill:
Yeah, I read that last night. The forum where it originated is a crazed Illuminati/Bilderberg joint. That being said, this post is making the rounds. Like you, I have no idea who this guy is, but……
The post gives a link to a great article about drilling in deep water. I think that if most people read this, their thought would be “We should stop doing this. Period.”
birthmarker
@SiubhanDuinne:
“You’re drinking too much tea” is a great rejoinder! Will steal and use freely!
Also, Cole. The reason you aren’t paid hundreds of thousands to spout inanities is because you don’t spout inanities. Ratchet it down a couple of notches for the big bucks!!
mattH
70 posts and we are still going on about the oil spill, even after El Cid pointed out that the editorial is really more focused on the economy and less on the oil spill. They admit in the editorial that there’s not much he can do outside of stern words and threats toward BP. STOP FOCUSING ON THAT. We’ve got an editorial, very prime real estate, announcing that we need to ignore the deficit scolds. This is
amazing, we should be quoting the hell out of this, yelling it from the roof tops. Let go of the spill, just for a second. Please.
Maude
@Montysano:
An event like this brings people out of the woodwork.
They love hysteria and most of all attention.
It’s bad enough without the End Times scenerio.
Montysano
@Linda Featheringill:
So far, no one has. A couple of commenters carped about the Godlike Productions web site, where he is a forum admin.
Montysano
What would “on top of this mess” look like? Thousands of boats roaming the Gulf with wet-vacs? Hordes of people tromping through the marshes and doing…. ?
From the NYT editorial: But the president needs to tell them the truth — that without more spending the economy could remain weak for a very long time.
Yes….. the truth. Fine idea. We Murikans is hongray for the truth.
Kyle
To the six-year-olds-playing-soccer of the corporate media, Obama should land on an offshore rig wearing an oil worker’s jumpsuit and hang a Mission Accomplished banner. Because the infantile whiny-ass babies need a constant stream of staged photo-ops and sound bites.
And nicknames. Obama should give them juvenile nicknames.
Elizabelle
Does anyone know why Thomas Friedman of the New York Times does not seem to allow reader comments appended to his columns?
Not snarking; genuinely curious because I really enjoy reading NYT reader comments as much or more than the columnist.
Was Friedman getting too much trolling?
Or the NYT moderates its comments, and Friedman didn’t want to do it or delegate?
Thanks.
LordCommanderlor
@Chat Noir:
They reap what they sow, they vote for “Drill, Baby, Drill” and they pay the price , but I doubt it would change minds.
blackwaterdog
Okay, why is the screen so WIDE here? It’s impossible to read anything. That’s sad.
Bill Section 147
Shorter answer for John Cole.
Your platitudes aren’t sufficiently banal and you do not clap loud enough?
licensed to kill time
@blackwaterdog:
Are you using IE? It looks fine on Firefox. I have heard people complain about the right margin thing but have never seen it myself.
Linda Featheringill
@ruemara: To do something about it all:
I contacted representative and two senators asking them to push for a plan to capture the oil if the relief wells fail. I suggested putting 2-3 producing wells into that reservoir.
Personally, I don’t have any faith in BP at all. I think that contingency plans will have to come from the somewhere else.
I plan to poke around a bit. Maybe I can find something on the Energy Website.
Anyway, it is better than doing nothing. Maybe we could get some folks to thinking about Plan B [or X, Y, and Z].
brantl
Shorter NY Times Editorial Board: “There isn’t much Obama can do about the oil spill, but he should be doing more of it!”
Exactly.