Crush Liberalism

Obama administration’s response to oil spill was inept, claims right-wing newspaper

And, by right-wing newspaper, I’m obviously referring to…the New York Times?  OK, who spiked Sulzberger’s latté?

Excerpt:

Geoffrey S. Morrell, deputy assistant secretary of defense, said in a statement that the government would hold BP accountable for the cost of the department’s deployment, which as of Friday night included the Louisiana National Guard to help clean up coastal areas once the oil comes ashore.

BP officials said they did everything possible, and a review of the response suggests it may be too simplistic to place all the blame on the oil company. The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP, which was leasing the drilling rig that exploded in flames on April 20 and sank two days later. Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead.

The Department of Homeland Security waited until Thursday to declare that the incident was “a spill of national significance,” and then set up a second command center in Mobile. The actions came only after the estimate of the size of the spill was increased fivefold to 5,000 barrels a day.

You know, this sounds errily similar to another environmental disaster, about five years ago in a large Gulf coast area, whereby the president was roundly criticized by the left and the MSM (pardon the redundancy) for a lackluster response.  I look forward to their consistency in criticizing this president with the same zeal they exhibited last time.

Of course, to be fair, the Gulf coast oil spill isn’t the same situation as Hurricane Katrina.  It’s much different, and in a way that isn’t flattering for the administration.

See, in the case of Katrina, the state of Louisiana, as well as Mayor Nagin’s Chocolate City, had evacuation and contingency plans at the local level…plans they ignored.  Clearly, the onus was on the state to plan for and respond to the hurricane.

But in the case of the oil spill, the incident happened in the Gulf of Mexico and could impact multiple states.  Obviously, it would be the responsibility of the federal government to deal with that.  Right?  Right:

But it is still the government, in this case the Coast Guard, that has the final say. A law passed a year after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster makes the owner of a rig or vessel responsible for cleaning up a spill. But oversight of the cleanup is designated to the Coast Guard, with advice from other federal agencies.

As much as the big government lovers on the left henpecked Bush for an anemic response by state officials, you would think they would have been better prepared for something like this.

Instead, you get this “Brownie-like” response from Big Sis:

The delay meant that the Homeland Security Department waited until late this week to formally request a more robust response from the Department of Defense, with Ms. Napolitano acknowledging even as late as Thursday afternoon that she did not know if the Defense Department even had equipment that might be helpful.

Heckuva job, Nappy.

May 3, 2010 Posted by crushliberalism | Louisiana, media bias, Obama, oil | 1 Comment