Sunday Funnies: Gov't Can't Clean Up Its Own Act

You're right, Sheldon (as is often the case). However, the government could have, and possibly should have, undertaken an immediate program of environmental damage mitigation as soon as BP made it clear that this thing was out of control.

Obama, for all his carefully chosen words and baseless threats, has accomplished nothing in healing this fiasco. He is not responsible for the recovery of one fluid ounce of oil. He is not responsible for the protection of one inch of shoreline. He claims that his think tank has been a clearing house for ideas, yet nothing has been added to the cleanup efforts via an Obama initiative.

Yes, the government may be ill suited to dealing with an industrial accident of this magnitude, but with words like "executive" and "administration" in his job description, we should expect that Obama could have accomplished something beyond casting blame and dodging responsibility.

But then, those are the things he does best, aren't they.

I would disagree. BP does not have a navy. The Coast Guard and US Navy, just as they were in the Valdez and all other ocean spills off the USA, have done things that BP simply cannot do.

In the Valdez spill, Exxon reimbursed the US and Alaskan governments around 1.2 billion dollars for their assistance in cleaning up the spill, and the vast majority of that was for the Coast Guard and the US Navy.

I'm in the oil biz, and I would rate Obama's performance to date far far above that of President Bush in 1989. I expect this will be the most comprehensive clean up ever, and that would be absolutely impossible to achieve if left solely to BP, which is why it isn't left to them.

And watch John Wayne's portrayal of Red Adair. When things go incredibly wrong there is only one real solution, and that is a very time consuming relief well. Nothing has changed.

.... if you could get these bastards to do a better job selling stamps that all we need from the federal goverment. Hell, the only thing these guys know is that they are getting the Lions share of the oil revenues in this country. Do you think they can cap off an oil flow. REALLY!!!! Let BP do their thing.

JCH,

Not opposed to all the help you can get on the clean-up; but remain opposed to messing around with the well cap/repair.

They claim that they know nothing about oil clean up or protecting our enviromental safety,but that they know everything about redistribution of wealth & everything there is to know about universal health care. Thank God we are not being attacked by terroist along our coast lines i guess that to would be up to the terroist to clean up. Is the suit in washington half full or half empty i guess is the real question