Barack Obama tries to pick the tar balls off of his legacy
What did the President know and when did he know it?
According to Richard Wolffe Barack Obama was apprised not only of the leak, but of the magnitude of the leak, how hard it would be to repair and how long it could go on:
Critics have bashed President Obama for being slow to seize the political initiative in combating the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast, now widely believed to be the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. The White House has battled back, releasing a timeline of events showing that Obama was briefed—and deploying the Coast Guard—within 24 hours of the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
What has not been previously disclosed: The president was not only briefed on the real-time events of the spill, but also on just how bad it would be—and how hard it would be to plug the hole.
This has nothing but bad written all over it:
The fact that Team Obama was warned of the extent of the disaster so early on suggests that White House officials were aware of the environmental challenge long before they decided to demonstrate concern via presidential visits to the Gulf.
This is mind-boggling. The President of the United States was aware of the situation essentially from the day one and only much later had to be prodded to show “concern.” He had to be prodded to make it appear that he cares. Yikes.
From Allahpundit via Moe Lane (Thanks, bill-tb):
The real disgrace here is why, if he really did know right away that this was the oil equivalent of an asteroid strike, he didn’t scramble some sort of all-hands-on-deck emergency operation to protect the coastline. Remember, Jindal reportedly requested five million feet of hard boom back on May 2, long after Obama (according to Wolffe) knew about the magnitude of the disaster. By May 24, not even 800,000 feet had arrived. What happened?
Obama made a promise:
Obama said: “We will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired and the cleanup is complete.”
Well, golfing is not resting. Obama has played golf with more frequency than he visited the spill site since the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Obama also had time to the headliner at the WHCD and host Paul McCartney while McCartney insulted George Bush. Priorities, priorities.
One cannot help but wonder why Obama did not act with more haste to make available to Bobby Jindal all the resources Jindal requested. Moe Lane reminds us that of the five Gulf Coast Governors, four are Republicans and three are up for election.
And of course, there’s more political treasure for Obama in the oil on the beach:
Will the Oil Spill Help Secure Cap and Trade?
Did Obama let this get completely out of hand before taking any real action because a huge spill was to his political advantage? Obama owes us some explanations.
I think I could make this a permanent part of every post:
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.