Sooooo...what can you say about this oil disaster but... oh shit. How could this happen? That seems to be the first question but the answer is obvious, shit happens. When you put people in charge of huge projects (and people are still our best option) they will tend over time, given enough opportunities, to screw up at least once in a while. And that counts for well meaning, well intentioned people. The calculus gets a lot less pleasant when you bring a strong profit motive (short term profit motive...this quarter profit motive) into play but no use crying over spilled oil. is there?So this is bad. This is really bad. It appears there has been some slight progress in contanment but we are told no total relief till mid-August which you have to think means September or October. There is already and unknown and unbelievable quantity of oil already in the gulf. We do not know how much. I am not sure what difference it makes. Whether above the surface or in "plumes" below it is bad. Very bad. So lets assume the best case scenario which is that BP traps most of the spewage now with it's latest "top hat", and skimming and that all we have to worry about is clean up. Once again, what a nightmare.
How do you do it? What is "it" anyway. Does anyone really think you can find, track and recover literally millions of gallons of oil from a nice, formally nice gulf which bordered our liberal, intellectual southern states. How would a poisoned Gulf of Mexico effect Texas pending secession? How will it effect LSU football? How will it effect Mississippi and Alabama's perennial effort to pass Arkansas and become 48th in literacy in the country? And how do you clean it up? How do you get oil our of the fish that are already there? How do you keep those fish from dying or having screwed up breeding due to the oil ingested? How do you find areas that have been poisoned under water and the now oily sediment that will be some of the worlds formerly richest oyster beds.
Guess what, you can't. And it is our President's fault. Why is it his fault? Because he was President when it happened. One of the problems with running for President and winning is that once your elected and once some time has passed (one day, week month or year) it is all your fault because it is all on your watch. I am told that our President is not taking enough "ownership" in anything and is blaming our former President for everything. That is bad form. I quoted to him that Reagan had done the same thing (based on Paul Krugman's asserting that Reagan basically spent three years blaming Jimmy Carter). I believed it. I was wrong, I think. Based on my limited internet research skills I could find where he did it about three times. Bush on the other hand looks to have said that "he inherited a recession" about 100 times. I do not know that my research is exact but that is what I found. Reagan clearly pegged a lot of problems on Carter and the country's malaise. hard to argue with. Bush on the other hand inherited a recession, along with a huge budget surplus and then presided over a real estate bubble to pull us out of it. Nice.
But back to Obama. He should not blame Bush anymore. It is boring, it is played out, it is poor form and he should be better then that. he is not. But he should be.
PS...and I was wrong about Reagan blaming Carter all the time. So was Krugman (the Nobel Prize Winner). I think I need to kill Krugman too.
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