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Political Hay
Slick Happens
Liberals want to replace BP with their own voices of reason.
“Push BP out of the way,” says President Obama’s Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. That’s his recommendation if the petroleum giant fails to plug the giant leak spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. You can see it on your computer and TV screens. It’s called “live streaming,” but what it shows is live crude oil streaming into our precious waters.
Push BP out of the way? The Coast Guard’s Commandant, Admiral Thad Allen responded to Salazar’s suggestion: “To push BP out of the way… would raise the question: Replace them with what?” Adm. Allen appears to be the adult on-scene-commander for this disaster.
Adm. Allen would not be drawn into a clash with Sec. Salazar, saying only that the former Colorado senator’s comments were “more of a metaphor.” TV personalities were having none of it. Whoopi Goldberg of The View weighed in with a rant about its being “Day 36” of the worst oil spill in history. Why can’t the government come up with something, Whoopi demanded to know. “Somebody get your a__ in gear here,” Whoopi whooped. Joy Behar, always the voice of reason, said it was all Dick Cheney’s fault. He de-regulated offshore oil drilling, and all for the sake of Halliburton, his former employer, Behar is sure.
What about BP’s hundreds of thousands of campaign contributions to Obama, asked the show’s token conservative. But Behar was off to the races. What this shows is we need campaign finance reform, she said.
Right. That would be of immediate help in plugging the leaking oil well. Maybe we could print 100 copies of another 2,000-page piece of legislation — one for each senator — wad them up, and stuff them into the hole. Print the bill on extra-absorbent paper, too.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is desperate to do something more practical to stop the oil from washing ashore and further damaging delicate marshlands upon which so much of the Bayou State’s fishing industry depends. Gov. Jindal wants to put sand berms in the path of the advancing oil.
Jindal is being prevented by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps wants time to “study” the impact of doing that. In the old days, before we had the capacity for endless such studies, volunteers packed sand in sandbags to stop floods, and they threw up barriers to fires and oil slicks.
Gov. Jindal is another adult, trying manfully to do something immediate to meet the catastrophe. He’s been quoted as saying he’d even risk jail rather than let his state’s coastline be covered in sludge.
President Obama is continuing to hover over this scene. “Plug the damn hole,” he growls to aides in the Oval Office, but in public he maintains Olympic calm. Newsweek editor Evan Thomas likes to say Obama is “like a sort of god.” The President apparently feels that if he maintains a godlike demeanor, no one will make the obvious connection between this present crisis and that 2005 event down there. You know, the one that rhymes with “marina.”
One question we need to ask ourselves: Why is BP drilling one mile down and a hundred miles offshore in the first place? Could it be that our extra-stringent government regulations have created the conditions for this first class environmental emergency?
Could anything imaginable in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have a worse environmental impact than what we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico? Could it be more difficult to handle a blowout of an oil well up there, even in mid-winter?
Is drilling that far out and that far down necessitated because Sierra Club senators won’t tolerate the sight of oil rigs closer to shore? Why don’t we tell them to throw tarps over the platforms and paint them to look like historic lighthouses? Tell liberals they can collect the whole set.
In the meantime, when candidates like Barack Obama tell us their election means “we will begin to heal the planet and the oceans cease to rise,” let’s respond with some healthy skepticism. We can replace Bush-Cheney policies. We can even replace BP. But, as Adm. Allen says: Replace them with what?
About the Author
Ken Blackwell, the former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio is Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee. He also serves on the boards of the Club For Growth and the National Taxpayers Union.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (56) | Leave a comment
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Stephanie| 5.27.10 @ 7:03AM
As some said yesterday on t his site, and I believe would make a fabulous bumper sticker,
"Wake me up when the impeachment starts"
But it is fun to watch obama and the democrats downfall.
Fecesisslicktoo| 5.27.10 @ 12:25PM
GD SHazzzam!!
BO BO is gonna have a news conference. Excitement post ipso-facto after late breaking new developments on the EPA/INTERIOR/HOMELAND security incompetence managing anything but the disingenuous message, let alone a NATIONAL DISASTER.
The ONE is taking time from the most vacationed lazy arse golf/basketball playing, 9million "GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT FOR " FY 2009 earner to supplicate the masses and , SIT DOWN SO YOU DO NOT FAINT, Answer Questions.
Just so happens as always the THE ONE,s message session from on high is CO-IN-CI -DIT-IOUS.
Anita is still utilizing tight message control for all you supposedly intellectual LIBERAls to digest, Everybody else is too damn smart to rise for this bait. BS only works for the enlightened. Pheromonally, the two earthbound matters i.e. liberals and bovine alimentary canal by-product masses are taxonomic-ally synonymous.
Richard | 5.27.10 @ 7:16AM
Mr. Blackwell, like Karl Rove on the pages of the Wall Street Journal,is desperate to invent a political spin on an engineering and procedural disaster. The reason that the oil and gas industry has been drilling in the deepwater Gulf is because of the incremental march of technology and adaptation, which until several weeks ago, had proven largely a success - successful enough to have provided over 140 new resource discoveries since the late 90's, and an increment of domestic oil production equivalent to what we currently import from Saudi Arabia. Yes, the Obama Administration has resorted to grandstanding that has begun to compromise the lines of authority that everyone who has trained for one of these exercises knows to be critical. But there are at least three lines of inquiry that should be rigorously pursued without thumbs on scales. First, in light of the experience of hundreds of safely drilled deepwater exploration wells how did this disaster happen, and to what extent did management culture and expectations contribute to the causal chain? Second, to what extent did lack of regulatory oversight enable this result, and to what extent did a shift in policy expectations for the key oversight agency over the past several years encourage or even drive that result? Third, but by no means finally, to what extent does political posturing by people from Washington in slavish obeisance to the 24/7 news cycle and our cultural demand for titillation and guilty parties hamstring the ability to execute effective response to a disaster? Those are just some of the questions that need to be approached honestly and empirically, and without prejudgment.
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.27.10 @ 10:03AM
Richard,
Well spoken. Thank you.
Folks,
..."what he said. Ditto!".
Louis Jenkins| 5.27.10 @ 8:27AM
Well, after watching the am news (puke) the Pretender n Chief has suspended all off shore drilling until 2011 at the earliest. Probably be much later if at all. Admiral Allen is indeed the only adult allowed to take the podium, but in this society it's the children that get the face time. Let's be honest here, the Pretender n Chief has shut down the off shore drilling, and it will stay that way for the length of his term.
Benny Lava| 5.27.10 @ 1:53PM
No, he didn't. He continued his ban on deepwater drilling.
Not all offshore drilling is in deep water.
Old Joe| 5.27.10 @ 9:23AM
I hope the country is ready for the results of shutting down offshore drilling. Speaking with people in the industry tells me that nearly 100,000 deepwater exploration personnel will be pot out of work immediately, tax revenues for Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and the federal government will plummet. Unemployment expenses and foreclosures will rise. The cost of gasoline and fuel oil will rise. America will become more dependent upon foreign oil.
Yes, BP screwed up and BP is bearing the cost as is my home state, Louisiana. But the industry's record in deep water is damn good and they should be allowed to continue to search for our natural resources. And by the way, this is far from the worst oil spill in history.
If we can't drill on land and we can't drill in deep water, just where do the environmentalist and the president suggest we do so? Oh I forgot, the goal is to collapse our economy and remake it in Greece's image.
David| 5.27.10 @ 9:51AM
The answer is to spread wind turbines across the land until 120% of our needs are met by them. Won't actually work but who cares about reality. Maybe what someone can do is start the rumor that all of these windmills sticking up in the air with the wind blowing against them will cause the Earth's rotation to either speed up or slow down, resulting in terrible global problems. This would cause the administration and environmental groups to rethink their focus on renewable energy (since there are few real scientists and engineers in these groups to help them understand reality).
Dixie Pixie| 5.27.10 @ 11:21AM
Since when is any Liberal in contact with reality?
fecesisslicktoo| 5.27.10 @ 12:37PM
SSPLAIN why Texas voted down BOON PICKINS yawl..
Wind generated power is unreliable and requires, COAL, NUCLEAR, NATURAL GAS or HYDRO power production units to operate. Since this arcane unsustainable since JIMMAH CARTEr stupidic fantasy is way the F@#K out in the middle of no where the power plants must be built where,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,GD you guessed it out in the middle of nowhere,,,where liberals concerned over insects, rodents, weeds tie up the process for decades in court ,,,,,where the BAR makes its millions only to then donate the cash back to the compassionate democrats.
What is produced. That warm gushy feeling in liberal panties. Save us all alot of time and trouble liberals. Please become incontinent. Currently all forms of GOV assistance covers DEPENDS and you get that same GUSHY FEELING without plunging MANKIND into the dark ages.
Houston Rao| 5.27.10 @ 12:14PM
Those Greek columns at Obama's acceptance speech were a sign (or promise?) of the change he would bring to America.
Dixie Pixie| 5.27.10 @ 12:31PM
No, The Greek columns where to drive home the idea Obama is the metrosexual version of a Greek God.
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 9:45AM
Don't think BHO is suspending all off-shore drilling; just new permits.
Delays and dithering by the kids will still take its toll on the industry and our need to be less dependent on foreign oil, but they're not talking shut down—are they?
Or did I miss the memo?
Dixie Pixie| 5.27.10 @ 12:48PM
The memo was just issued by the San Fransisco glitter-aristocracy to Obama to ban all offshore drilling or else no money.
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 2:15PM
As in the article Andrew Cline posted today about the bitters?
Dixie Pixie| 5.27.10 @ 3:49PM
Greetings Campy
I was just trying to point out Obama projected the airs of a principled pro-drilling Democrat moderate until he met with the San Francisco money men. The next day Obama's firmly held and inviolable principles are flipped 180 degrees and now all offshore drilling is to be stopped.
When Democrat money says jump, Obama says he was already there due to the brilliance of his intellect.
In short when Big Money talks, Obama does what it wants, principles be dammed.
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 3:57PM
Hi Dixie.
Or in other words, when Big Money talks, *it* does what they want!
Dixie Pixie| 5.27.10 @ 6:37PM
Greetings Campy
My personal rule of thumb is if it can not be positively identified as Animal, Mineral, Vegetable, Human or Artifact, I consider a loosely defined object as an “it” until proven otherwise.
Was that clear as mud?
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 7:23PM
"a loosely defined object"
Dixie... couldn't say it better myself! Thanks!
Anthony| 5.27.10 @ 10:22AM
Obama, Salazar and the rest of the Obama Marxists couldn't plug their own mouths, let alone a pipe a mile beneath the Gulf.
Instead of offering BP government and private sector help on this, Obama and his bureaucratic goons spill platitudes. But hey, a crisis like this is too important to waste, we have a country to shut down.
Mark Levin observed the other night that the "Clean Water Act" mandates that the president take control and use all necessary resources to control and limit the spill's affect on the Gulf.
However, the pretender-in-chief has more important things to do, like go to San Fran and hobnob with ultra-rich lefties for Barbara Poodle.
If Obama really wants to do something constructive here, he'd stick that fat Napolitano into the pipe to plug it up. It would be a great twofer.
Stephanie| 5.27.10 @ 1:18PM
Perhaps we could plug up the One's piehole along with Napolitano in the oil gusher.
Old Joe| 5.27.10 @ 10:26AM
No, not complete shut down but no new permits. Don't confuse exploration (drilling) with production. They are entirely different employee specialties and entirely different oil platforms. So as those wells that are currently being drilled actually come in (find hydrocarbons) or strike a dry hole, those exploration crews will be laid off. The drilling platform owners will tow their drilling platforms to other parts of the world and start drilling again. The problem is that there are many rig workers who won't or can't work overseas. The next problem is that there are many US firms that specialize in supporting nothing but gulf drilling. When all rolled together you get the unemployment figures and all the problems that go along with it.
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 10:41AM
Thank you, Old Joe. I see what you mean and appreciate the education.
k962| 5.27.10 @ 10:29AM
Hey Whoopi are you finding out the government is not God? You really didn't believe thast the oceans would recede did you
Kylie Estwick| 5.27.10 @ 1:20PM
"Drill Baby Drill"
but what if it leaks out in the ocean?
"Shut up you liberal cry-baby and go back to Russia!"
No Drill; No Spill
NOW do you see why we believe the things we do?
Nick| 5.27.10 @ 1:38PM
We know why you bleeding hearts believe what you do. It's called a lobotomy.
If you think Presedent Dither is going to stop off-shore oil drilling, you're delusional.
By the way, did you hear that James O'Keefe, the guy behind the ACORN "pimp" videos, pled guilty to a MISDEMEANOR. And that he only got 3 years PROBATION, 100 hours of community service, and a $1500 fine! Ha-ha!
ROWDY BOOTS| 5.27.10 @ 9:30PM
Dear Nick,
Does he have to work for ACORN?
lol.
Rowdy Boots
Nick| 5.28.10 @ 1:04AM
Rowdy Boots,
Good one!
I'd rather they make him work for the DNC.
Wouldn't that be fun?
Benny Lava| 5.27.10 @ 1:54PM
From your post, I can't see a damn thing except grammar abuse.
Charles Stevens| 5.27.10 @ 4:53PM
That's it, honey, never let an opportunity go to waste, always throw the baby out with the bathwater, and please pay no attention to that government man behind the curtain who already makes oil & gas exploration one of the most regulated entities in this country (along with the financial and "healthcare" industries).
BTW, if the government were so wonderful, then forget for a moment how much regulation is already in place, but just ask yourself why the federal government's response has been so disastrously uncoordinated, late, tepid, and ineffective? Hmmmm? For example, it was the responsibility of Obama administration to get unused tankers down to the spill and start sucking it up, which is by the way a proven response used in previous situations like this. Oh, I'm sorry, that doesn't conform to your hackneyed progressive metanarrative about Big Oil and benign Big Government.
As to what caused this disaster in the first place, read below my exposition of this latest example of the Cloward-Piven strategy.
Enjoy, you POS !!!!
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 7:39PM
Kylie
What I don't believe are the things you do.
Christopher Beam's oily-spinning thuggery and game-plan wet dream is disgusting.
http://www.slate.com/id/2255117/
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 2:11PM
To any of you oilmen/women,
Couple more questions after nearly falling asleep watching BHO's press conference. (What IS it about that man's voice that creates the snooze effect?)
First of all, twice he said that MMS had a history or culture of giving the oil industry waivers on thirty-day environmental studies because they couldn't be done within that time frame. Why not?
Secondly, he made the statement that the reason the wells were so far out in the gulf, necessitating the extreme depths and difficulties, was because all the easy oil had already been sucked up. I've been under the impression that it was governmental/environmental regulation that mandated that.
Can you enlighten? Thank thee.
Oldefarte| 5.27.10 @ 3:49PM
Great article, Ken, and THANKS! Yea, too bad the GOVERNMENT and its COMANDOR BES A COMIN' IN CHIEFS doesn't just 'take over'....then we'd have a US POSTAL SERVICE type moment and similar expertise dealing with the problem. The important point of Ken's article is the fact that our government, due to political pressure from environmentalists, forced oil companies to drill in MILE DEEP waters and therefore CAUSED THIS CRAP! if allowed to drill much closer in not so deep waters, hardhat marine divers could have capped/repaired this oil leak in about 5 minutes! Oh and Joy BAYWHORE and her TINGLE DOWN HER LEG MOMENT over the president would not know a oil well from a public toilet [so she's obviously not qualified to determine if Cheney's Halliburtin is somehow responsible for this disaster]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A.M. Mallett| 5.27.10 @ 4:12PM
well, first, Salsie, get your stinkin' boot off his neck
Charles Stevens| 5.27.10 @ 4:42PM
For all you conspiracy afficionados out there, try this...
The Liar-In-Chief, aided and abetted by some key and very covert progressives in both union and management positions on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig, planned this disaster, including the tepid response of the federal government.
Why, you may ask?
1) It reinforces the progressive mantra of Big Oil = villain.
2) It will allow progressives to take over the oil industry even further, to the point of being effectively nationalized.
3) It will provide some kind of opportunity to give the Conservative LA governor Bobby Jindal's administration a black eye.
4) Further drilling for new oil will be prohibited, thus..
5) Gas prices will shoot up, and taxes will increase.
6) Further billions can now be spent on green energy, including those firms already in bed with progressives such as GE and GM.
This is the Cloward-Piven strategy in action, folks, and by God it's working beautifully.
HAIL OBAMA, THE LIZARD KING (PEACE BE UPON HIM) !!!!
RCV| 5.27.10 @ 6:46PM
Yes, that's right, the liberals "planned this disaster". You wing-nuts never cease to amuse me.
Charles Stevens| 5.27.10 @ 7:43PM
I love it!!! I got a progressive in my trap, one who no doubt was one of the first to insist that Bush somehow instigated the Katrina hurricane. Obama is not responsible for anything here? But of course your progressive secular religion relies on lies and double standards.
Here's the point, bub...
We already know that progressives will cynically take advantage of this crisis, as per Rahm Emanuel "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste". What I'm now wondering, is why should progressives stop there? Why not now, "Hey, let's instigate a few of those crises!". Please respond by writing a 5000 word essay on the Cloward-Piven strategy, and somehow prove to me it doesn't apply.
HAIL OBAMA, THE LIZARD KING (PEACE BE UPON HIM) !!!!
Campy| 5.27.10 @ 9:29PM
CS... check this out about crisis management:
http://www.slate.com/id/2255117/
2.7 more years| 5.27.10 @ 5:29PM
turn it over to a government? what a foolish thought, it took a government NINE MONTHS to cap the worst oil spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico. NINE MONTHS. what's it been on this one, a little over a month and the top kill has it down to a mere trickle? yeah lets turn it over to the government.
RCV| 5.27.10 @ 6:50PM
I love it when hypocrites like Mark Levin complain the federal government isn't doing enough! It reminds me of when the Teapartiers came to Washington and complained that the government didn't run enough public transportation for them! And as for Top Kill, maybe you missed the latest news, but it's not down to a "mere trickle".
ROWDY BOOTS| 5.27.10 @ 9:28PM
Dear RCV,
Obama's popularity is down to a trickle too.
and you are probably the last drip.
SO SHUT UP AND GET A JOB!
oops...there are none, sorry.
rich, wealthy, actually worked for his money
---> ROWDY BOOTS
RCV| 5.28.10 @ 12:17AM
Rowdy, I've worked for over 40 years and done quite well thank you. The people who are dissatisfied with Obama are the Spectator crowd, who didn't vote for him to begin with. Those of us who did are very grateful we worked hard for his election and will do so again in 2012, when I have every confidence he'll be returned for a second term.
Troll Watch| 5.27.10 @ 11:46PM
Is that you Robert Vollowitz? You were down to a trickle and now look what has happened. Do you really think we want the Obama spill? You're projecting your morals in your stupid fashion. You were always the dumbest of trolls.
Santa Barb| 5.27.10 @ 10:39PM
Historic lighthouses? I guess Ken Blackwell never saw the fake palm trees we had eons ago in Santa Barbara to camouflage the platforms offshore in that idyllic city of the newly-wed and nearly dead.
Ron| 5.29.10 @ 3:57AM
Obama is playing this pretty dog-gone well; at least from the perspective of someone trying to tear down this country.
Rahm must have said Thank You 100 times after being handed a crisis like this for him not to waste. A huge swath of the gulf coast will likely be destroyed financially. The residents will quickly be quasi-wards of the state while the years of the coming litigation begins. This crisis was made to order for this syndicate.
It could turn into a huge boon for the liberals, far beyond anything we'd expect. I can see the headline now, "U.S. seizes American Big Oil". It only makes sense that they'd have too. Big Oil can devastate the economy AND the environment in a matter of days. If the liberals needed any reason to justify taking over oil, this was it on a silver platter.
Brian| 5.31.10 @ 11:38PM
BP gives $millions to leftist enviro groups fighting oil drilling. Something is wrong with this picture
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