Ahem. Can someone please point at the government agent with the ability and incentive to stop the leak?

It's all just braying until then. The teleprompter doesn't know what to "order the oil companies" to do.

Unless one is an engineer, one that specializes in underwater oil exploration, one does not know that what the oil companies "stood together and advised" was not the best option out a set of poor ones. This oil leak is a mile down on the ocean floor. To suggest that Obama and his band of apparatchiks know better than oil engineers what to do in order to stem the spill is the height of illogic.

Not saying that the oil companies shouldn't have had better plans. Not saying that someone out there, right now, doesn't know better. Not saying that the government shouldn't have long ago consulted them. But I know for sure that the Ivy League wonks in this administration do not, themselves, have any better ideas than the oil companies do. The only thing they, starting with their leader, are at present bringing to the table is a lot of complaining and demonization, which is not very helpful in solving the immediate problem.

> The problem with this BP spill response is
> that President Obama asked the oil companies
> for their advice instead of ordering them what
> to do to stop the spill.

Of fer Christ's sake, this is a man who needs MORE authority? He's not just a magical negro anymore... We should dress him in blue tights and a red cape and call him SuperPrez and just tell him: "Barry! Dude! From now on, you'll never be constrained, OK? You can just tell everyone in the world what to do when things go wrong. Don't bother to consult anyone, don't bother to negotiate. Here are the keys. Make it your world!"

> BP's response would not look the same if
> President Obama threatened to nationalize
> their assets and take charge

That's a very Chavez way to go, especially for a country that just twenty years ago gave the industry a liability cap.

BP's response would not look the same if President Obama threatened to nationalize their assets and take charge of the situation.

Really? How, specifically, would it look different? I'm sure the author has extensive scientific details to back up that claim, right?

And it would be somewhat difficult for an American president to nationalize the worldwide assets of a company not based in the U.S. Somehow I don't think the Brits would go along with that. And given the immense amount of liability that BP has now incurred in the U.S., I wonder if "nationalization" of its U.S. assets would be such a terrible thing for its bottom line.

Helloooo Retard

..ordering them what to do to stop the spill

love that English.

?!? so he's known all along?

Is this a parody?

> I wonder if "nationalization" of its U.S.
> assets would be such a terrible thing for
> its bottom line.

Brilliant point Marion, and oh-so-typical of the leftazoid mentality... 'Hmm? This size-hyooge, tentacled venture is packed with crippled, bleeding "assets"? Well, let's steal it from those who made it that way and give it to government! Things will go better once everyone in the country is responsible for it!'

This name Brownfield is new to me; the squib photo on the page shows a callow youth. I'm not sure he's as conservative as an entry on the Daily Beast would lead us to believe.

One more thing: Nothing good comes from taunting presidents about their masculinity, and this will hold true even when we have a woman in there.

These people are not our manly Dad. Rather than think of them as dynamically glandular, we should seek players who are dryly clerk-ish. These people should be public servants, not leaders. We're Americans. We don't need leaders.

And pay close attention to that word "clerk":Don't for a moment imagine that it means "harmless".

Ok, blurb, not squib. Gimme a break, it's morning here.

>> Is this a parody?

I wondered that too. This guy seems to be under the impression that BP is deliberately not stopping the leak and that president Obama knows how but won't tell them.

As someone directly effected by the spill, I think Obama has been very weak on this. There's no doubt that the oil companies are probably the only ones with the technology to address the leak itself, but what we are being told is that as soon as oil reaches our shores, the Coast Guard must step back and defer to BP. They call all the shots, and the Coast Guard is just in an advisory capacity.

Why should the cleanup effort, and our irreplacable wetlands, be in the hands of the greedy company that caused the spill in the first place?

The government should be handling the cleanup, and present BP with the bill. BP has no incentive to protect the environment and clean up the mess the right way. They'll cut corners and put on a show of it (like bringing in workers for the presidential visit), but their sole incentive is to save money.

Slow down, LS—

http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/28/does-the-bp-spill-validate-soc

I see the point, Crid. Thanks for the link.

Still, there must be a middle ground. BP is doing virtually nothing to protect the shoreline, and, as a private company, that's to be expected. They are better off just waiting for the lawsuits and dragging them out for 20 years until the public doesn't care anymore.

Obama has to see the conflict of interest. Yet, he just seems to believe BP actually cares.

It's nauseating to me that after living under government restrictions for 20+ years in order to protect the fragile environment...DCA, DNR, DER overseeing every permit or improvement on our land with the sepcific mandate of environmental protection...that now they supposedly have NOTHING to do with it?

If I want to build a dock or a structure on my property that might hurt a mangrove or a tree snail, I'm not allowed by government. So, we've already adopted socialism for the sake of environmental protection. Why stop now when we're facing the biggest ecological disaster in history?

Competence and leadership are called for, and our empty suit is found wanting.

"The problem with the BP spill response is that President Obama asked the oil companies for their advice instead of ordering what to do to stop the spill"

He did order them. "Plug the damn hole" were his exact words. Does that inspire confidence in his competence and leadership?

"BP's response would not look the same if President Obama threatened to nationalize their nationalize their assets and take charge of the situation"

Hugo Chavez took Brownfield's advice a couple of years ago. The result? Catastrophic failure. Venezuela's oil production dropped like a stone, not because the country ran out of oil reserves, but because the nationalized oil industry fell apart so badly that they can barely manage to get the oil out of the ground.

BP stock has already dropped more than 25 % since Deepwater Horizon blew up, and it's a long, long way till August, when the last-resort relief well will finally be drilled. I'd say they have a pretty strong incentive to control the spill as soon as possible.

I feel terrible for you and everyone else in the path of this thing, lovelysoul, and you're right - government should be leading the way on near-shore & on-shore cleanup. I just have doubts that Obama has much to offer in that regard.

Something tells me that it's not Obama's process that slows him down, but that he doesn't want to be the one to make the decision. He temporizes until conventional wisdom gels on what the decision should be, and then endorses it. Because if he were actually engaged in the deliberation of policy, he'd be more familiar with what it is that he's proposing - he doesn't seem to keep up with the evolution of his own policy proposals, which suggests that someone else is steering their development. He also has a strange habit of referring to his office as though it's occupied by someone else.

"Something tells me that it's not Obama's process that slows him down, but that he doesn't want to be the one to make the decision."

Bingo! Obama is the ultimate end product of a process that's been going on in government for a long time: figuring out ways to wield authority, while foisting the responsibility that should go with that authority on someone else. Obama has made it pretty clear that every decision he's made as President has been absolutely the right one; in every single case it's been someone else's fault that it didn't work. I would tend to agree that Obama could put more pressure on BP if he wanted/knew how to do so, maybe not by threatening them with nationalization, but by using the moral position of the Presidency. But every time Obama has tried that in the past, he's come out sounding like a B-movie street thug (I keep waiting for one of his advisors to say that "we're gonna bust a cap in BP's ass"). At this point, Obama's whole gang has not the skill, the knowledge, or the credibility. They are standing on the sidelines preening because there is literally nothing else they can do. As far as cleaning up this spill (and a lot of other things), they're useless.

The big pink elephant in the room is that the spill should not have occurred in the first place. The technological and procedural mechanisms to prevent it were in place -- and they were bypassed by short-sighted BP management, with a wink (or maybe a snore) from the regulators who should have had oversight. Don't forget that about 12 men died in the initial explosion, working men who had no say-so over the procedure that killed them. Some BP and government people have the carbonized blood of those workers on their hands already. It's not too surprising that their leak-stopping team seems directionless and demoralized. There's no one around with the technical and moral credibility to lead them.

Finally, it stuns me to realize that, as far as capping blowouts and containing oil spills, we're still using 1960s technology. Have we learned nothing in the last four decades? Or is it the case that no one wants to spend the money on R&D until it's too late?

Finally, it stuns me to realize that, as far as capping blowouts and containing oil spills, we're still using 1960s technology. Have we learned nothing in the last four decades? Or is it the case that no one wants to spend the money on R&D until it's too late?

While I haven't listened to every word -- but it sounds like a combination of incompetence, errors, laziness and procrastination.

The other thing that I commented on the other night is that Obama has and had authority from day one.
---------------------------------------
Clean Water Act
Section 311 - Oil and Hazardous Substances Liability

§ 1321. Oil and hazardous substances liability

(c) Federal removal authority.
(1) General removal requirement.
(A) The President shall, in accordance with the National Contingency Plan and any appropriate Area Contingency Plan, ensure effective and immediate removal of a discharge, and mitigation or prevention of a substantial threat of a discharge, of oil or a hazardous substance--
(i) into or on the navigable waters;
(ii) on the adjoining shorelines to the navigable waters;
(iii) into or on the waters of the exclusive economic zone; or
(iv) that may affect natural resources belonging to, appertaining to, or under the exclusive management authority of the United States

http://www.epa.gov/Region7/laws_regulations/CWA/section311.htm

Obama in a nutshell:

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet about the ground. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the man, "but how did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

The man below responded, "You must be a manager."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are exactly in the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

http://www.engineeringedu.com/jokes.html#The%20Balloon

"Finally, it stuns me to realize that, as far as capping blowouts and containing oil spills, we're still using 1960s technology. Have we learned nothing in the last four decades? Or is it the case that no one wants to spend the money on R&D until it's too late?"

Whoa there, pilgrim. Without knowing any of the details, I can tell you with high confidence that digging and drilling don't respond to your buying an iPad by being wonderfully easier. There is incentive in all design fields to distinguish yourself with a new, more reliable and economical design, but simple physics is a killer in a lot of cases.