[StBernard] Obama brings Nixonian twist to oil spill

[Westley Annis]

Obama brings Nixonian twist to oil spill
Examiner Editorial 
June 7, 2010   

Nothing more fully reveals the essential character of a person or group than
a crisis. Thus, the ecological and political catastrophe of the Gulf oil
spill has exposed a breathtaking level of incompetence, political
opportunism and mendacity at the heart of the Obama administration.
Documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity make clear that the
White House was told by the Coast Guard within 24 hours of the April 20
explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon platform that the equivalent of 8,000
barrels a day could escape into the ocean. Within three days, Obama and his
senior aides were warned that the spill could exceed the in environmental
damage caused by the Exxon Valdez wreck in 1989.

Despite these warnings, over the next two months Obama attended Democratic
fundraisers, played golf, hosted basketball and football teams at the White
House and delivered commencement speeches. Two weeks passed before he could
be bothered to go to Louisiana. On April 29, Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby
Jindahl declared a state of emergency as the oil spill covered 600 square
miles and was only 16 miles from the coast. Jindahl begged federal officials
for permission to build a massive network of sand berms to contain damage to
beaches. Washington responded a month later but permission was only granted
to build 2 percent of the berms requested.

Meanwhile, as Obama dawdled and oil appeared off Florida's beaches, the
president delivered a strident speech in Pittsburgh with a decidedly
Nixonian twist. He should have been summoning political leaders across the
spectrum to lay aside partisan concerns for the moment, but instead Obama
asserted that Republicans believe that "If you're a Wall Street bank or an
insurance company or an oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own
rules, regardless of the consequences for everybody else." This libelous
mischaracterization marks a new low even for a man so highly practiced in
the ugly art of political demagoguery.

Finally, as the thick black crude and natural gas continued to erupt into
the Gulf waters and public exasperation with BP's futile attempts to stop it
piled up one after another, Obama dispatched Attorney General Eric Holder to
Louisiana to proclaim that "we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the
law anyone who has violated the law. We will not rest until justice is
done." Shortly afterward, Obama blasted BP for "lawyering up" in response to
the government's threats. As ill-timed as it was, Holder's announcement
nevertheless clearly confirmed what was plainly suggested by Obama's
Pittsburgh speech: His top priority is not to stop the spill, but to shift
blame away from himself and to forever tar his opponents with responsibility
for a catastrophe made far worse by his own spectacular mismanagement.



Read more at the Washington Examiner:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obama-brings-Nixonian-twist-to-oil
-spill-95733059.html#ixzz0qB2UIfb3