Is This Obama’s Katrina? Nice Work, Kenny.

(8PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

Exactly how far does BP have to go, how many times does it have to blunder and fail and make excuses while it tries to preserve its investment in the leaking well, before the US pushes BP out of the way and stops the leak that is now destroying the Gulf of Mexico?  Apparently, pretty damn far.  Long story short, the US isn’t going to take over the problem at this point.  You know we’re in big, big trouble when the intervention of the US Army Corps of Engineers looks like an improvement in disaster management.  

This from Reuters makes the US government’s intentions less than perfectly clear:

The U.S. government will move aside BP (BP.L) from the operation to try to halt the Gulf of Mexico oil spill if it decides the company is not performing as required in its response to the well leak, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Sunday.

“I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading,” Salazar told reporters after visiting BP’s U.S. headquarters in Houston.

“We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed,” Salazar added, referring to the failure of containment efforts attempted so far by London-based BP to control the gushing undersea well one mile (1.6 km) down on the ocean floor.

President Barack Obama’s administration is facing growing public and political pressure to take full charge of the oil spill containment operation as criticism against BP grows.

Yeah, Ken, we’re all angry and frustrated.  But, guess what?  We’re not the Secretary of the Interior or of anything else.  We’re not in the cabinet.  We’re sitting here watching the Gulf of Mexico turn into a petrol gumbo laced with oil coated pelicans.

And what exactly do you  mean when you say, “if” the company isn’t performing as required?  Performing as required means that the leak is stopped.  Closed up.  That there’s no more oil.  Running a straw into the leak so that BP can sell it and make money on it isn’t exactly “performing as required.”

If we find they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately,” Salazar said, but he did not specify at what point this would occur or what might be the trigger for it.

“This is an existential crisis for one of the world’s largest companies,” he said, in a reference to the billions of dollars of cleanup and damages costs that BP faces.

Give me a f*cking break. That last paragraph has to be some kind of sick joke.  “An existential crisis for one of the world’s largest companies?”  Dude, it’s an existential crisis for the Gulf of Mexico, its inhabitants, and its wild life if not the oceans generally and the planet.  You think I or anybody else gives a rat’s ass whether BP fails?

If you know how to stop the leak, it’s really time to stop it.  This sitting and watching as BP diddles and tries to harmonize stopping the leak with preserving its investment in the well is going to kill the Gulf, if it hasn’t done so already.  33 days is more than enough time to stop the leak.

The federal response, described in your brilliant statements today, is what I call feckless.  And that’s the nicest term I can find to describe it.  This is a disgrace.  The only thing we’re lacking at the moment is the icing.  That would be Obama telling Ken Salazar what a great job he’s doing.  I wish I didn’t think that was next up.

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles and dailyKos

26 comments

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  1. I just can’t accept how this is being handled and how it’s being talked about.

  2. pathetic display of “staying above the fray”…

    Now his inaction is actively contributing to the greatest ecological disaster in living memory…

    What a woefully inadequate and criminally negligent person to have in charge when we need a god damned leader.

    Fuck Barack Obama……

    Fuck.Him.

  3. why restrict any more drilling?  Nothing there anymore.

    Obama’s biggest crime here isn’t the inaction – it’s the wrong action. The dispersants may be just as bad or worse than the oil alone–and his EPA and CG allowed that.  

    • TMC on May 24, 2010 at 00:09

    This certainly could have been stopped weeks ago, Instead the Obama regime and BP are trying to save BP’s use of this well at the expense of the environment and the economy.

    Congrats, you made the wreck list at DK but the Obama apologists are on a rampage in the comments. They will defend him no matter what he does or doesn’t do. Disgusting.

    I also up dated your tags there. 🙂

  4. Are people in our government, including Obama, so stupid that they cannot envision the extent of damage that this disastrous event, caused by BP’s negligence, has already caused and how far-reaching it may ultimately be?  The aspects of a broken “food chain” are so, so frightening to contemplate.

    One commenter at DK (here: The Gulf spoke about how experts from 12 countries, i.e., Britain, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Nations, had all offered help, but were politely refused.  WHY????????  (The commenter also had an otherwise interesting comment, as well.)

    And I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but Kevin Costner has developed a machine over 15 years, with some 15 scientists and this machine can separate water from oil at the rate of some 210,000 gallons a day of oily water.  The machine can spit out 99% pure water in the process.  So, what is taking so long with this to get going?  So, why are negotiations taking so long?  We just might guess the same thing.

    See more here.

    Our planet, little by little, is being destroyed by GREED!

  5. That’s it. This servile, ass kissing corporate reverie is about as nauseating a collection of words as I can imagine.

    I thought we were nearing political rock bottom phraseologically speaking but, lo, we are witnessing a whole new convoluted netherworld of wordsmithing.

    EXISTENTIAL?*^%><!  {it’s not existential if dying people have to wait 4 years until their preexisting condition can’t be used against them?} {it’s not existential if a drone kills an innocent family, because existential doesn’t apply in that particular circumstance?}{and of course it’s not existential if a big chunk of the biosphere simply dies?} Oh, but we will use that term for a company that makes oil platforms and has many concerned shareholders?

    All I can say is, “That’s it”

  6. in this casino.

  7. And of definite merit!

    The GOP rushed to brand the Gulf Coast disaster “Obama’s Katrina.” But new reports make clear the Bush administration’s lax attitude toward regulation deserves much of the blame. Daily Beast

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