Gulf Oil Disaster--Obama's Katrina

Conservative Examiner ^ | 5/26/2010 | Anthony G. Martin

[Welshman007]

Five weeks have passed since the oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. After five weeks the citizens along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are still waiting for government to respond appropriately to an ecological disaster that effects hundreds and potentially thousands of miles of coastline.

(Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal displays a stick that he dipped into oil on a land bridge built by the Louisiana National Guard to protect wetlands on Elmer's Island in Grand Isle, La., Thursday, May 20, 2010. Oil from last month's Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has started drifting ashore along the Louisiana coast. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)).

The companies involved in the oil rig certainly bear the bulk of the responsibility. This is the reason BP agreed almost immediately to pay for the costs of containing the leak and cleaning up the aftermath.

But this in no way absolves the Obama Administration from much of the responsibility for the failure to contain the spill adequately and quickly, preventing the oil from reaching the shore. The EPA and FEMA have oversight of disasters of this magnitude. Both have failed the American people miserably.

[Boardwalk]

This is so much worse than Katrina!

[neutrality]

So you are saying the government and thus taxpayers should clean up, despite the fact a private business is saying they’ll handle it

[Welshman007]

BP will pay for it. But only the government equipped to handle the aftermath on the coastline. BP is not set up for that, although they may fund it.

[hosepipe]

O'Biden is bleeding this oil crisis like a hungry Vampire..
i.e. leech, bat, tape worm, quack doctor, shaman, goldigger, con man, PimP, etc..

[cartoonistx]

[A_perfect_lady]

I almost wonder if they are letting it go because they want it to be bad as possible, in order to move forward legislation to prevent oil-drilling offshore completely in the future.

[SuziQ]

WRONG! President Bush was planning for Katrina BEFORE she ever made landfall. It was Ma Blanco and Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin who dropped the ball on preparations for the hurricane. Even afterwards, it was the responsibility of the State's Governor to ask the President for assistance, though she was in charge of her own National Guard, so she could have sent them to NO at any time.

In Katrina, the Bush Administration had the Coast Guard in the air within 24 hours, plucking people off their rooftops. FEMA was waiting outside the city, not being allowed to go in because the media was putting out reports (erroneous it turns out) that rescue workers were being fired on by who knows who! FEMA wasn't going to place its folks in harms way, so they held off til there was protection for them. The blame for so many people living in squalid conditions until FEMA could get there should be laid squarely at the feet of the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.

On the other hand, as soon as this BP accident occurred, whatever Federal agency in charge of responding to this sort of thing should have been on the horn IMMEDIATELY to the President, who could have called on the Navy and Coast Guard who could have begun action to contain the spill closer to the site. Apparently the person who was supposed to be in charge of those things either didn't KNOW they were in charge, or they simply didn't bother to do what they're supposed to do. OR it's possible that Obama WAS informed, but his 'get out the minority vote' tour was too important to be interrupted.