Death of "Top Kill."
Reports from the Gulf indicate that BP, announcing the death of the "top kill" and the "junk shot," is no closer to a solution than it was on April 22, and that the next phase of desperate measures has minimum success with maximum palaver on a daily basis. Drip, drip, drip, with a bot cam on the spill. The relief wells remain the solution. The politics become increasingly grotesque. POTUS embraces the responsibility for the operation without anyone asking him to do so, and now he is responsible for all the failures of BP and MMS and Interior. This is folly. POTUS didn't do this. Why does he accept the grief? What advantage to this ploy? BP failed, and continues to fail. The regulators are slackers, not just at MMS but in Europe and UK and Asia.
Follow the Money.
Is there an advantage to POTUS to inserting himself into the picture? Is there money for the Democrats in announcing there will be reorganization of the regulation process? Unknown.
POTUS Doubt.
The puzzle is POTUS. There are odd reports, unconfirmed but persistent and from random sources, that speak to a brittle, impatient, disorganized, fretful, petulant, self-doubting actor who is unpredictably temperamental and despairing. Random reports, more frequently now than before. It is not BP. The BP catastrophe has been building over five weeks, and it is just now, late May, that POTUS exposes the White House to the unknowns of the engineering. It may be frustration with Washington. It may be that POTUS has run out of the energy from the election. There is little of the cheering to be heard from the distant campaign. Perhaps none of the cheering. The debt, the mortgages, the joblessness, the youth unemployment, the debts. The midterms are not about POTUS. The worldwide economy staggers with the falsehoods of the past, the Eurozone and the delusion of a united Europe without the permission of the people. Is it the scale of the crisis? Did POTUS not hear the risk of the W recovery? Even the Democratic Congress now hesitates to continue the debt heaping. POTUS is no longer at the center of the narrative. POTUS is not even Plan B. There are scenarios. LBJ? Carter? Whom does POTUS resemble with this news cycle's strangely mock-epic Biblical language in the White House's gloomy statement upon the failure of "top kill"?
"Every day that this leak continues is an assault on the people of the Gulf Coast region, their livelihoods, and the natural bounty that belongs to all of us," Obama said in a statement. "It is as enraging as it is heartbreaking, and we will not relent until this leak is contained, until the waters and shores are cleaned up, and until the people unjustly victimized by this manmade disaster are made whole."
comment on tonight's broadcast--
John, Nancy Pelosi IS NOT a baby boomer!!
She's 70 years old; oldest boomer is is 64.
Correct. Yet Mrs. Pelosi's success is based upon the women's liberation that was fueled and driven by the female boomers. Same for Mrs. Boxer. They prosper because they are figureheads for the bulk of the regiment of women. Meg Whitman and Carla Fiorina are perfect examples, along with Mrs. C., of the sisterhood rising.
And the youngest is 48....
POTUS takes responsibility because he sat around on his ass for how long? Spouting about a nobel laureate cabinet member doesn't fix anything. Enough of the propeller heads and time to call in the pros from dover. Besides, since Gore won the nobel prize, it isn't the same.
"Is there money for the Democrats in announcing there will be reorganization of the regulation process?"
The government is a shakedown operation. The money is in not regulating A and overregulating B. They'll get their money one way or the other. It's all very French. Let the bidding begin!
"See how the Fates their gifts allot,
For A is happy - B is not."
I won’t even bother to pile on. It’s already way too obvious what’s going on. At least after the World Trade Towers attack, we had a few hours of coming together to figure out what to do. This time, it seems, we’re totally stumped. The oil spill in the Gulf is an apt metaphor for America’s bleeding. There’s nobody around to stem the flow; nobody with even the most rudimentary understanding of first aid. Worse yet, the bleeding is internal, affording the opportunity (for those eager to avail themselves of it) to pretend that El Cid lives to fight another day.
In truth, we are only days away from when even the sand-in-the-ostrich-eye ruse will dissipate and our folly is fully exposed.
Three failed presidents in a row and counting. (No fourth in his right mind will risk it.) The first destroyed himself; we destroyed the second (in order to save the first); the third has been effectively destroyed by outside events. A troika of millstones (sic) have effectively brought us to this low point: Monica, 9/11, and now Deepwater Horizon.
We failed to consider the consequences of letting Bill get away with it. We thought that by audaciously building him up as the standard bearer of a major American political party we could mask his eternal disgrace. We failed to consider the consequences of gratuitously mocking Bush. Now we see the result – we see it world-wide.
Like it or not, we were the glue that held the free world together. We always were intrinsically different from China, Iran, Zimbabwe, Russia, Cuba, etc. We were the alternative which decent people could glom on to; draw inspiration from; anchor their hopes to. We weren’t perfect, but we were truly exceptional. We kept the boot on the necks of the world’s tyrants.
We have destroyed ourselves. Only the most inattentive could think otherwise. We are madly rushing from portside to starboard and back again. Each time we do, our ship pitches a little more. Eventually our ship will take on water and sink. It could happen after midterms. Pray we even make it that far.
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JB - "Is there an advantage to POTUS to inserting himself into the picture?" -
POTUS was convinced that ‘top kill’ and ‘junk shot’ would work. His news conference proved it. He was confident and full of vim and vinegar. He didn’t want to let this opportunity - to revive his 'divine' attributes - pass. Obama seems wedded to this particular MO. The last time he used it was when he personally went abroad to pitch the Olympics for Chicago - same result: failure.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
I wish we ever had so much angst over leaks from the CIA and the Pentagon as we have had over the leak in Deep Horizon.