Obama's Oily Summer

Day 41, America still held hostage by spewing oil, spreading environmental damage, a corrupt oil corporation and arrogant, incompetent government officials who have no clue how to solve the crisis.

And Obama - known as President Accountability in these parts for cheerleading the firing of Rhode Island school teachers for "incompetence" - is the HEAD INCOMPETENT in this tragedy of Biblical proportions.

And I am not overstating that part about Biblical proportions. Here is how the Associated Press wrote up the story yesterday:

BOOTHVILLE, La. - There is still a hole in the Earth, crude oil is still spewing from it and there is still, excruciatingly, no end in sight. After trying and trying again, one of the world's largest corporations, backed and pushed by the world's most powerful government, can't stop the runaway gusher.

As desperation grows and ecological misery spreads, the operative word on the ground now is, incredibly, August — the earliest moment that a real resolution could be at hand. And even then, there's no guarantee of success. For the United States and the people of its beleaguered Gulf Coast, a dispiriting summer of oil and anger lies dead ahead.

Oh ... and the Atlantic hurricane season begins Tuesday.

...

Trouble is, the longer it lasts, the more beasts emerge ready to wrestle. Crude-coated birds are becoming a frequent sight along coastal areas. At the sea's bottom, no one knows what the oil will do to species like the newly discovered bottom-dwelling pancake batfish — and others that remain unknown but just as threatened.

Perhaps most alarming of all, 40 days and 40 nights after the Deepwater Horizon blew up and began the underwater deluge, hurricane season is at hand. It brings the horrifying possibility of wind-whipped, oil-soaked waves and water spinning ashore and coating areas much further inland. Imagine Katrina plus oil spill.

Has a certain Armageddon vibe to it, doesn't it?

Summer is a notoriously slow time for news, so you know the cable news networks and the papers are going to be covering all facets of this story - from the oil-soaked wildlife to the economic devastation wreaked upon the fishing and vacation industries by the disaster to the mix of corruption and sheer "Don't Give A Shittedness" that BP has displayed in first allowing this to happen and then not doing all that much to stop it.

And of course the entity that will get the worst of the press coverage will be the Accountability President who toured some of the devastation the other day on a beach while wearing a suit and a tie.

As somebody said about that photo op, it's never good when a president is being photographed in a suit and a tie on a beach.

Just ask Nixon.

The problem is that the Accountability President has done almost nothing else but photo ops to mitigate the effects of the disaster. As the NY Times reported today

The administration has left to BP most decisions about how to move forward with efforts to contain the leak.

Is this the best leadership that Obama can display in time of national crisis (and make no mistake, hundreds of thousands of spewing gallons of oil washing ashore and polluting the Gulf of Mexico from top to bottom is a national crisis)?

Colin Powell doesn't seem to think so:

Despite the White House efforts, the criticism also intensified. Colin L. Powell, who served as secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC’s “This Week” that the administration must move in quickly with “decisive force and demonstrate that it’s doing everything that it can do.”

Neither does Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal:

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, appearing on “Meet the Press,” again criticized the administration’s efforts, saying: “We need our federal government exactly for this kind of crisis. I think there could have been a greater sense of urgency.”

Leaving aside the irony of Small-Government Is Better Jindal calling for a larger display of federal power and action in this time of crisis, I would like to note that Obama - who seems to think the feds should make every call in education policy right down the lesson plans teachers teach - suddenly is taking a "hands-off, let BP take the lead" on this.

Even when it is obvious BP has no idea what to do and maybe doesn't even give a shit since their liability is capped at $75 million.

Hell, that's chump change they can recoup the next time there is a run-up in oil prices.

Which there just might be after this disaster.

I think this mess will permanently tar President Accountability as the "Do-Nothing President" and "President Incompetent."

Part of the problem for Obama is that he had reversed course on oil drilling just two weeks before this mess, saying we need to drill for off-shore oil in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Coast and there would be no environmental impact because

"It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced."

-- President Obama, quoted by Think Progress on April 2, 2010.

Just 18 days later, Deepwater Horizon exploded and began the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history

Actually it turns out, President Accountability, that oil rigs are NOT technologically very advanced nor safe from oil spills.

Given the documents that the NY Times has obtained from BP from BEFORE the explosion, it is clear BP knew Deepwater Horizon could blow up and/or fall into the sea and cause a disaster.

The question is, why didn't YOU know that and why were you saying something so stupid and inaccurate about oil drilling in the gulf and the safety of oil rigs just 18 days before this tragedy started?

This has been one heckuva job for a man who says he wants to hold people accountable for their actions.

So far, other than one scapegoat in the government that Obama fired, nobody else has been held accountable for it.

Maybe he'll fire some teachers for it?

And of course Obama thinks he has no complicity in the mess.

Hell, he is still blaming the Bush (and Clinton) administrations for this mess.

But just as George Bush could not recover from the damage done to the administration from Katrina, Obama will NOT recover from this mess if it continues into August or later as is thought will happen.

Hell, he is even starting to sound like Bush with stupid quotes like this:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is encouraging Americans to visit the Gulf Coast despite the huge offshore oil spill.

At a White House news conference Thursday, Obama said while three beaches in Louisiana have been fouled by oil, the rest of the region's beaches are clean and safe. He says Gulf state governors have asked him "to remind everybody" the beaches are open.

Actually, I take that back. Obama is not sounding like Bush after 9/11 when he told people to go shopping to make things better.

He is sounding like the mayor of Amity in the movie Jaws talking jive as the shark continues to chow down on swimmers:

Mayor Vaughn: [to reporter] I'm pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means "friendship".

Where's Quint when you need him?