I have to thank Open Salon's Jacob Freeze for a timely reminder that Obama's lack of reaction to the disastrous Gulf oil spill and his willingness to accept BP's less-than-stellar efforts to cap the well are nothing new. This is from a 2008 campaign speech that most people ignored:
In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic.
Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself - by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.
Jacob made just a few little changes and the difference is less startling than revelatory.
In the early years of the environmental movement and opposition to the offshore drilling, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of Big Oil of being hippy tree-huggers.
Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of corporate America itself - by defacing Exxon signs; by blaming Shell Oil for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor the CEO's who enrich us all by enriching themselves.
One suddenly realizes that the above is probably, based on subsequent events, what Obama actually meant. He was defending the status quo and playing the usual conservative debating trick of false equivalence - pretending that the murder of tens of thousands of our young in a war that was fought for an idea so faulty and so paranoid that one is ashamed to even mention it these days, is the equivalent of burning a piece of multi-colored cloth, that PR symbols are the equivalent of napalm. What is he doing now but making the same false equivalence, defending BP and attacking his critics - and theirs - for their impatience as if that is the same as the environmental mega-destruction caused by BP's historic disinterest in safety expenses?
Even the NYT, which has been reluctant to criticize anything done by either Obama or BP since the spill happened, has begun to put some energy into noticing that the Obama Admin's late arrival on the scene has nothing whatever to do with ignorance.
As President Obama and his top aides were convening a series of meetings that led to the announcement in March of a major expansion of offshore oil drilling, the troubled history of the agency that regulates such drilling operations was well known.
Mr. Obama, shortly after taking office, had assigned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to clean up the agency, the Minerals Management Service. The office's history of corruption and coziness with the industry it was supposed to regulate had been the subject of years of scathing reports by government auditors, lurid headlines and a score of Congressional hearings.
But the promised reforms of the agency were slow to arrive, and the subject of the minerals service never came up at the meetings leading to the new drilling policy, according to a senior administration official involved in the discussions.
"I don't recall a conversation on how the offshore drilling and M.M.S. issues overlapped," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations involving the president.
No. That connection was apparently too tough for Mr 11-Dimensional Chess to make. Of course it couldn't possibly be that he was ignoring the MMS mess because he didn't want to piss off a bunch of potential major contributors, could it?
Political expediency may have played a role. In pushing offshore drilling, Mr. Obama was hoping to placate the oil industry and its supporters in Congress, who were demanding increased access to the outer continental shelf in exchange for their possible support for broader climate change and energy legislation that Mr. Obama wants.
That focus apparently eclipsed any concerns about the minerals agency, especially since at the time no oil rig had exploded and sent hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil into the gulf.
The breadth of the expansion stunned oil industry representatives, who were expecting a much more restrictive policy accompanied by tough new safety and environmental rules. They were prepared to attack the new policy; instead, the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's main lobby, praised it.
"We saw the president's announcement as a positive development," said Jack Gerard, president of the institute, "a recognition that oil and natural gas play a critical role in our energy future."
(emphasis added)
When you "stun" oil executives with your generosity, you ought to understand that you've just done something really really dumb. You've taken your toadying way too far.
We're seeing the results of that toadying now and it's ugly as hell.
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