Is Obama To Blame For Not Acting Fast Enough on The Gulf Oil Spill

I think a lot of Louisiana conservatives would be skeptical. I include myself in those numbers. Intapundit has this:


JOHN HINDERAKER: Was the Federal Response to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster Adequate?

It appears clear from this record that the Obama administration 1) underestimated what was obviously a major incident with potential for environmental catastrophe, and assumed a best-case scenario–the opposite of what Ken Salazar now claims; 2) relied for too long on British Petroleum to contain the spill, without taking decisive action to protect American interests in the Gulf Coast; 3) had no real plan in place for how a major spill in the Gulf could be contained; and 4) to this day, remains obsessed with asserting that financial responsibility lies with BP, without any apparent understanding of how inadequate such liability will prove to those whose livelihoods have been devastated.

It will take months and years for all of the relevant facts to become known, but I suspect that before too long, the Obama administration will default to its strongest defense: that while its response may have been ill-prepared, short-sighted and slow, it didn’t matter, because even an adequate, timely response could not have prevented the destruction that it appears will result from the Deepwater Horizon incident. That may turn out to be true. Whether this defense will satisfy voters remains to be seen.
Stay tuned.

Now in the background of this is the whole BUSH KATRINA issue and how I think many Republicans rightly thought that Bush and by implication them got way too much of the blame of how that was handled. I agree with those complaints.

However it should be noted that while the rest of the Country was "blaming" Bush and Republicans for how Katrina was handled Louisiana voters(who had to deal with it close up and personal) were much more widespread in their blame. That seems to to be never be noted. Republicans suffered very little after Katrina. In the aftermath we saw the GOP get back the Governors seat and in fact hold on to all their Congressional seats. In fact through a weird twist of fate they even got the NOLA Congressional seat. Further McCain did better than Bush even in Louisiana.

So it would be interesting maybe for once to listen to people that are actually on the ground this time. Time will tell.

Now it is true there was no plan to "contain" a oil spill of this magnitude. But who do you blame for that? Obama? Bush? Clinton? Bush I, The Gulf Coast States? The Congress over the decades? Or the great American people that seem to lose interest in Louisiana pretty quick once we are off the headlines?

I do agree that BP will not be able to pay for everything? Of course I guess we have to find out actually how this happened. There are many companies involved here. So yes the Obama administration and the Congress is going to have to come to terms with that.

But so far I am not seeing much to fault the Obama administration with at this point.