Posted on 06/29/2010 8:16:55 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s one thing to say that Obama’s administration showed ineptitude and mismanagement in its handling of the Gulf oil spill. It is quite another to grasp the situation up close, as I did during a recent visit to Alabama.
According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan — early on — to erect huge booms offshore to shield the approximately 200 miles of the state’s coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms — some weighing tons and seven meters high — to guard their coast.
But … no sooner were the booms in place than the Coast Guard, perhaps under pressure from the public comments of James Carville, uprooted them and moved them to guard the Louisiana coastline instead.
So Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.
But … the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan, saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.
So Alabama — ever resourceful — decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person, scooping up oil that had washed ashore.
But … OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) refused to allow them to work more than 20 minutes out of every hour and required an hourlong break after 40 minutes of work, so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.
The short answer is that every agency — each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda — was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill, with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries and recreational facilities.
Where was the president? Why did he not intervene in these and countless other bureaucratic controversies to force a focus on the oil, not on the turtles and other incidental concerns?
According to Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, the administration’s “lack of ability has become transparent” in its handling of the oil spill. He notes that one stellar exception has been Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, without whom, he says, nothing whatever would have gotten done.
Eventually, the state stopped listening to federal agencies and just has gone ahead and given funds directly to the local folks fighting the spill rather than paying attention to the directives of the Unified Command. Apparently, there is a world of difference between the competence of the Coast Guard and the superb and efficient regular Navy and military.
Now the greatest crisis of all looms on the horizon as hurricanes sweep into the Gulf. Should one hit offshore, it will destroy all the booms that have been placed to stop the oil from reaching shore. And there are no more booms anywhere in the world, according to Alabama disaster relief officials. “There is no more inventory of booms anywhere on earth,” one told me in despair.
The political impact of this incompetence has only just begun to be felt. While administration operatives are flying high after a week in which the president’s ratings rebounded to 49 percent, per Rasmussen, after his firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the oil is still gushing and the situation is about to worsen.
The obvious fact is that Obama has no executive experience, nor do any of his top advisers. Without a clear mandate from the top, needed efforts to salvage the situation are repeatedly stymied by well-meaning bureaucrats strictly following the letter of their agency policy and federal law. The result, ironically, of their determined efforts to protect the environment has been the greatest environmental disaster in history. But some turtles are OK!
Agreed with Morris until the last paragraph...” well-meaning bureaucrats.”
There is NO SUCH THING. All bureaucrats, by definition, cannot think for themselves or apply common sense for fear of bucking the organization and losing their jobs. There is NOTHING well-meaning at all about them. They just seek self-preservation at all costs and don’t give a damn about the consequences to anybody else.
Just check out California's situation.
And sell or raze the office buildings they worked in.
Bingo! Folks have got to get over this notion that Obamalamadingdong is inept and all the crap going on is a result of ineptitude. It's actually far from inept. The entire Obama term thus far and all the events that have occurred are unfolding precisely as they have planned. Everyone should realize the Obama administration wants this spill to be the single greatest ecological catastrophe of all time. They will use it to kill the oil industry or seize control of it, ala GM and Chrysler.
Oh yeah, the oil spill... Is that still going on?
Thanks all to the gullible, naive' democrats!
Bump for later reading
Or that the toilet actually flushes - without overflowing. ;)
Not only is Obama utterly incapable, he’s giving Chicago politics a bad name. In Chi, the tradition always was: “We don’t care how you do it, just get it done. Fix the potholes, pick up the garbage, plow the snow.”
You can be corrupt, but you must be competent. Obama is corrupt and incompetent.
Unforgivable!
Obama administration is intentionally obstructing clean up letting the oil damage spread.
Wow, what a picture! That is probably one of the most ominous & foreboding pictures I have seen, depicting the onslaught of evil from the chief anti-christ 0bozo the RAT bastard commie pig, usurper-in-crap.
ROFLMAO! I needed this little bit of earthy levity to begin my day. Just to lighten up the otherwise dismal accounts of 0bozo seeking to destroy our country in an onslaught of various ways & schemes.
Obama couldn’t figure out a ballpoint pen.
China couldn’t figure out the fork.
I agree to a point. Remember when Top Kill was proceeding well and Obama hurriedly went down to the Gulf to get in front of the cameras? Everyone thought TK was going to work and Zero wanted to be front and center to take credit. Well, TK failed and Obama slinked back to the golf course leaving the MSN to figure out how to get the oil spill off the front page.
Central government control that strong arms and bypasses input from the locals really is this inept. Couple this with an administration staffed entirely with political hacks and you get a Grade A cluster****.
Since the spill kinda got away from him, Obama decided to spin the ecological disaster as a case in point for bashing the oil industry and maybe push his Cap and Trade scam through congress. My question is this... Where the hell are the enviormentalists? If this were republicans in power they would be shrieking 24/7 in front of the cameras. They are sitting on their hands with nary a peep in protest. Clearly shows that the enviromental movement has nothing to do with the enviroment at all. Its just a tool to further a political agenda!
Agreed. He didn't bungle if his inaction and actions were intentional.
It’s not a bungle when you do something on purpose.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2544244/posts?page=1
Podesta clan’s close ties to Obama pay off big
EXCERPT
Tony has represented BP since 2006, recently lobbying for current climate legislation. BP was a prized ally for Sen. John Kerry, who is leading the charge in the Senate for a global warming bill.
According to the Wall Street Journal, John Podesta is nearly writing the president’s response to the BP spill. While Obama hasn’t coddled BP, he is using the spill to advance the climate legislation BP supports and for which Tony Podesta has been lobbying.
bump
Title should read-
“Obama’s a big bung hole”
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