The President's Speech on the Oil Spill

As I wait for President Obama's first Oval Office address, I guess I have some thoughts about the oil spill. I do not need to go in to all the devastation, both environmental and economic, that is being caused in the Gulf. We all know that, and nothing I can say about how sad I am when I see dead animals and newly jobless people really adds to the reality in the Gulf.

I do have some frustrations to vent, however.

First of all, I think that any comparison to the Bush administration's response to Katrina is an absolutely false analogy. After the hurricane, everyone knew what needed to be done, and the government did not do it. With this oil spill, no one knows how to fix the leak, and while Obama has gathered all of the best scientific and engineering minds together, no one can fix it. I know a lot of Republicans would not be satisfied unless Obama went down in a wet suit himself with a giant cork.

Second, for Republicans to blame the Obama administration for mismanagement of the MMS is disgusting, and to hear Republicans talk about the fact that the government needs to be harder on BP is depressingly laughable. One can only clean up so many piles of shit in a day, especially after eight years of shit-spreading. Of course the Obama administration is ultimately responsible for everything the government does, but responsibility and blame are not the same thing. And Obama has already taken responsibility for the problem, an act which Bush took years to do (for anything).

What Obama can do is make sure everyone being deployed is working together. He has the power to streamline and coordinate the response. As the chief executive, he can re-up his reaction and make sure everyone else is doing the same. But anyone who has paid any attention over the last month knows that Obama has not been sitting around.

But for politicians to say that "now is not the time" to push forward on developing alternative energy policies is also disgusting. If drill-baby-drill politicians do not see now that we cannot continue on the same path, then they never will.

I'll be back with some thoughts after the speech.

After the Speech. . .

President Obama delivered a good address, and many of the ideas he presented are excellent. The trouble, of course, is that words mean nothing to the people most affected. So we will have to wait a few weeks and see how Obama's plans manifest themselves. I do like the idea of making BP set aside funds in an independently monitored escrow fund. But I do agree with some post-speech criticism that the address lacked some specifics about what exactly the government will be doing. On the other hand, I am not sure that tonight's address was the place for a list of machinery and equipment, etc. But he did a good job assuring us that he is on the job.

We'll see.