Barack Obama tries to pick the tar balls off of his legacy
What did the President know and when did he know it?
According to Richard Wolffe Barack Obama was apprised not only of the leak, but of the magnitude of the leak, how hard it would be to repair and how long it could go on:
Critics have bashed President Obama for being slow to seize the political initiative in combating the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast, now widely believed to be the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. The White House has battled back, releasing a timeline of events showing that Obama was briefed—and deploying the Coast Guard—within 24 hours of the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
What has not been previously disclosed: The president was not only briefed on the real-time events of the spill, but also on just how bad it would be—and how hard it would be to plug the hole.
This has nothing but bad written all over it:
The fact that Team Obama was warned of the extent of the disaster so early on suggests that White House officials were aware of the environmental challenge long before they decided to demonstrate concern via presidential visits to the Gulf.
This is mind-boggling. The President of the United States was aware of the situation essentially from the day one and only much later had to be prodded to show “concern.” He had to be prodded to make it appear that he cares. Yikes.
From Allahpundit via Moe Lane (Thanks, bill-tb):
The real disgrace here is why, if he really did know right away that this was the oil equivalent of an asteroid strike, he didn’t scramble some sort of all-hands-on-deck emergency operation to protect the coastline. Remember, Jindal reportedly requested five million feet of hard boom back on May 2, long after Obama (according to Wolffe) knew about the magnitude of the disaster. By May 24, not even 800,000 feet had arrived. What happened?
Obama made a promise:
Obama said: “We will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired and the cleanup is complete.”
Well, golfing is not resting. Obama has played golf with more frequency than he visited the spill site since the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Obama also had time to the headliner at the WHCD and host Paul McCartney while McCartney insulted George Bush. Priorities, priorities.
One cannot help but wonder why Obama did not act with more haste to make available to Bobby Jindal all the resources Jindal requested. Moe Lane reminds us that of the five Gulf Coast Governors, four are Republicans and three are up for election.
And of course, there’s more political treasure for Obama in the oil on the beach:
Will the Oil Spill Help Secure Cap and Trade?
Did Obama let this get completely out of hand before taking any real action because a huge spill was to his political advantage? Obama owes us some explanations.
I think I could make this a permanent part of every post:
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Of course he had to let it get worse…how else would he justify his shutting down gulf drilling.
As I’ve said a number of times…
I lay this whole disaster at the feet of the Environmental Lobby, Congress, and the President.
We have plenty of oil on land, or in shallow water (places where this leak would have been almost immediatly cap’d), but instead we are forced to drill for oil in water over a mile deep.
If this blowout had happened in ANWAR? Would have been a minor spill… if it had happened in a shallow water well? would have been cap’d very quickly.
But instead, these oil rich SAFE environments are off limits… placed there by the Greens, Congress, and the President.
I can see November from my house and I can hardly wait
Perhaps there will be an impeachment prior to 11/2/10 – HOPEfully the pResident will be replaced…………………….
If he think cap n’ trade will come through with his derelection of duty – HE IS FREAKIN CRAZY AND THE ANTICHRIST!
“I lay this whole disaster at the feet of the Environmental Lobby, Congress, and the President.”
Laying it there and convincing the public that that’s where it belongs are two entirely different things. Conservatives might want to think carefully about the wisdom of going after environmentalists while the media is filling up with shocking images of environmental disaster.
THE mantra of the Obama Administration:
You never want to let a good crisis go to waste. Crisis allows you to do things you could never do before – Rahm Emanuel
Disgusting.
BTW, the argument that environmentalists have driven private companies into deeper waters is horse hockey. They’ve gone there because “that’s where the energy is” and that’s where they’ve seen big future profits. Pushing for increased deep water drilling was part of the previous administration’s national energy policy. If anyone doubts that, have a look at this Mineral Management Services document, dating from 2004:
http://www.mms.gov/Assets/PressConference11152004/MSGlossySingle_110404.pdf
It looks like the effectiveness of deep water blowout preventers was called into question back in 2004: http://govdocsblog.kentlaw.edu/wordpress/?p=3251
From the referenced 2004 MMS report:
“As stated in a mini shear study recently done for the MMS, only three recent new-build rigs out of fourteen were found able to shear pipe at their maximum rated water depths. Only half of the operators accepting a new-build rig chose to require a shear ram test during commissioning or acceptance. This grim snapshot illustrates the lack of preparedness in the industry to shear and seal a well with the last line of defense against a blowout.”
http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/463.htm
Three out of fourteen… I guess that suggests that somebody knew.
I don’t really give a FLIP whose idea it was to drill in the deep blue sea miles from nowhere. Alaska has billions of natural reserves but the GREENIES won’t let them touch it. The GREENIES don’t want the oil rigs near land.
Obama is completely incompetent-plain and simple.
Incompetance has it pitfalls.
@susiepuma: THE GOOD NEWS
On the impeachment, you might get your wish. If these job offers to keep politicians Obama wanted in office goes far enough, that is an impeachable offense according to the US Constitution.
THE BAD NEWS
Look what his replacement will be!
@Smorgasbord
I’ll take the gaffetasticly honest bumbler over the narcissistic American hating bumbler, thank you, and consider it a huge improvement.
@Patter: I agree that Biden would be a step up, but a very small one. With his son in the military, at least he should be more concerned about military personal than King Obama is.
There is more information that is being uncovered about this Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The Eurpoean Times had an interesting article, (with statistics of investors), which mentioned
that Goldman Sachs sold 44% of their B.P. stock THREE WEEKS before the Oil Rig explosion.
This is looking more and more like sabotage; perhaps the Trilateralists with Bildberger backing?
(What about George Soros and his stakes in Petrobras, Brazilian oil company?)
Why rake BHO over the coals? This was obviously Bush’s fault! Isn’t everything Bush’s fault!?!?