Frank Rich: Obama’s Katrina? Maybe Worse

[Me.]

Nice shot at Carville with this piece.

FOR Barack Obama’s knee-jerk foes, of course it was his Katrina. But for the rest of us, there’s the nagging fear that the largest oil spill in our history could yet prove worse if it drags on much longer. It might not only wreck the ecology of a region but capsize the principal mission of the Obama presidency. Before we look at why, it would be helpful to briefly revisit that increasingly airbrushed late summer of 2005. Whatever Obama’s failings, he is infinitely more competent at coping with catastrophe than his predecessor. President Bush’s top disaster managers — the Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, as well as the notorious “Brownie” — professed ignorance of New Orleans’s humanitarian crisis a full day after the nation had started watching it live in real time on television. When Bush finally appeared, he shunned the city entirely and instead made a jocular show of vowing to rebuild the coastal home of his party’s former Senate leader, Trent Lott. He never did take charge.

The Obama administration has been engaged with the oil spill from the start — however haltingly and inarticulately at times. It was way too trusting of BP but was never AWOL. For all the second-guessing, it’s still not clear what else the president might have done to make a definitive, as opposed to cosmetic, difference in plugging the hole: yell louder at BP, send in troops and tankers, or, as James Carville would have it, assume the role of Big Daddy? The spill is not a Tennessee Williams play, its setting notwithstanding, and it’s hard to see what more drama would add, particularly since No Drama Obama’s considerable talents do not include credible play-acting.

But life isn’t fair, and this president is in a far tougher spot in 2010 than his predecessor was in 2005.

When Katrina hit, Bush was in his second term and his bumbling was not a shock to a country that had witnessed two-plus years of his grievous mismanagement of the Iraq war. His laissez-faire response to the hurricane was also consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall to big business. His administration’s posture toward the gulf region had been telegraphed at its inception, when Dick Cheney convened oil and gas cronies, including Enron’s Ken Lay, to set environmental and energy policy. The Interior Department devolved into a cesspool of corruption, even by its historically low standards, turning the Bush-Cheney antigovernment animus into a self-fulfilling prophecy and bequeathing Obama a Minerals Management Service as broken as the Bush-Cheney FEMA exposed by Katrina.”…cont…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/opinion/30rich.html

[opihimoimoi]

1. + 1 Gazillion n ME2...Friggen Misbehaving GOP Bullies got in the HenHouse

Now all we got is probs and mo probs

Obama is doing the bes he can...way better than Bushie boy and his Good Job Brownie

[rurallib]

2. I do not understand what it is they expect Obama to do.

With Katrina, once the damage was done Bushco acted like a bunch of vultures when there was something of a template already established as to what to do.
With this fuck up, there is no end in sight as yet. Oil personnel have lied from the beginning to cover their asses. What was the admin to do? they had to get data from someplace and the Coast appears to be no longer capable. Also, was it Obama's fault that there was no back-up plan etc? Seems like this has been SOP for a long time.
And from what I understand, no one has fixed a mess like this very quickly before.
Nor did anyone have a week to stage recovery like they had (and ignored ) with Katrina.
Maybe he needs to eat some radioactive something and turn into a super being.

[leftstreet]

3. Hurricane Katrina was not a corporation. Seize BP now! n/t

[tabatha]

4. BP is under the direction of the government.

Seizing BP will not make the equipment work better.

[HughMoran]

5. In fact, siezing BP would piss off the engineers to no end and likely lower performance

[tabatha]

7. Someone with sense.

[DatManFromNawlins]

36. The engineers wouldn't care if they still got paid the same

The vast majority of them are contractors for liability reasons.

[Walk away]

8. And that is why this is President Obama's Katrina.

People who haven't a clue about what they are demanding that he do. If the entire world seized the international companies that destroyed their coast lines, stole their natural resources and caused sever hardship to it's people...then the United States would have NOTHING! Every U.S. company would be owned by third world countries all over the globe.

Wake up! 30 years of Americans being too lazy, stupid and distracted to chose decent leaders is what caused this disaster. Yes we will have to get whatever we can from BP but our agencies allowed BP to do the deed. There are, sadly, consequences

[Number23]

23. You know, this is probably the best point I've seen on ANY topic all week

If the entire world seized the international companies that destroyed their coast lines, stole their natural resources and caused sever hardship to it's people...then the United States would have NOTHING! Every U.S. company would be owned by third world countries all over the globe.

Good Lord, that is so true.

And I agree with your point about people "with no clue" being the most demanding. That is often the case, I've found, with just about anything.

[Me.]

26. They Expect Him To Get In A Boat

And cap that well with his bare hands.

[LeftyAndProud60]

6. People down there seem to be blaming Obama now. (PIC)

[Walk away]

11. People "down there" will continue to put their red state assholes in charge...

and continue to be screwed. These morons just don't get it. They vote for pols that want to drill, drill, drill without costly regulations. They live in areas that are driven by the jobs and taxes that come from drilling and then they get pissed when they have to pay the piper.

If they are too stupid to figure this out and need to blame someone who actually wants to help them, then they are doomed to repeat this disaster. I feel bad for the poor birds and the beautiful wetlands.

[nashville_brook]

21. so you're saying they deserve this. and, FL deserves this. and anyone else tarred by it...

they also deserve the ecological destruction because "we're too stupid."

Is that what you're saying?

[Walk away]

24. Nobody forced this country to elect their leaders on the basis of bullshit.

People don't deserve to suffer but there are consequences to continually making poor choices. I hate that so many people in my state will suffer because our new republican Governor decided that nine thousand millionaires don't have to pay taxes. We'll take the billion dollars out of human services and education instead.

Who's fault is that? A majority of our state put him in office because they were too stupid to vote for their own best interests. Hopefully we'll learn a lesson. If we don't then we'll get screwed again. That's how it works.

[Me.]

28. Mary Landrieu Warned That Obama Will Pay A Political Price

She has a fat lot of nerve getting on her high horse. She's been on side side of oil from the get-go.

[Walk away]

29. This is the idiot who thanked Bush and FEMA for their good work during Katrina...

so her opinion on anything is sort of useless. Time to put a real Democrat in office.

[rudy23]

41. She sucks, but she did say she wanted to punch Bush in the face. n/t

[Walk away]

44. She hated Bush AFTER she loved Bush.

Even republicans did that.

[Arkana]

47. Wasn't she the one with that little sneering quip

about "the other 19,999 oil rigs working perfectly"?

[rudy23]

40. Hey, call us morons one more time. n/t

[Walk away]

45. If you take the time to look you will see that my post was in response to one with...

a photo that read "BP and Obama put us out of business". If you agree with that sentiment then I am afraid that I have to stand behind my words.

If you don't and you just didn't take the time to read what generated my post, well....

[Champion Jack]

9. Frank Rich is an asshole, Fuck him

[Lorien]

12. Yeah, keep attacking the messenger

That always makes a strong case for your position. :eyes:

[Champion Jack]

33. Rich is wrong again

keep drinkin' the koolaid

[jgraz]

18. Hey, it's corporate apologist Mad Libs!

__person with critical thinking skills__ IS A __childish epithet__

It's fun for the whole family!

[Champion Jack]

35. It's not critical thinking skills

it's more Frank Rich wrong headed opinion spouting

[MadBadger]

20. Doenst sound like you read the article. I'm just guessing

[Champion Jack]

31. you would be guessing wrong,

[Bluebear]

27. You sound really, really stupid when you don't read the article before spouting off

Just sayin'.

[neverforget]

30. A lot of that going on......it's like a gag reflex but without the projectile

vomiting.

[rudy23]

42. Hamsher'ed! n/t

[elocs]

10. With Obama and the BP oil spill perception is everything. The American public needs to perceive

and really believe that he is on top of it all. They do not need to be told weeks later at a press conference that the federal government was calling all the shots.

There are many Republicans who even today refuse to believe that Katrina had any negative impact upon Bush and there are just as many Democrats today who firmly believe that there is no way that this current disaster could have any negative impact upon Americans' view of how Obama is dealing with the problem.

To both I would say, reality sucks.

[katandmoon]

13. K&R. Brilliant column.

[H2O Man]

14. Interesting.

Recommended.

Thanks.

[Usrename]

15. I don't think Frank Rich gets it at all.

He seems to be brainwashed with the BP propaganda too, just like Obama is.

[malaise]

16. The best thing about Rich's article for me

is that it takes everyone back to Obama's most important speech today - the role of government.

Good article by Rich - Rec

[freddie mertz]

46. Agreed. And it is NOT an anti-Obama rant AT ALL either.

Read it folks.

Then think.

[malaise]

17. Dupe

is that it takes everyone back to Obama's most important speech today - the role of government.

Good article by Rich - Rec

[ProSense]

19. Typical Rich

The Obama administration has been engaged with the oil spill from the start — however haltingly and inarticulately at times. It was way too trusting of BP but was never AWOL. For all the second-guessing, it’s still not clear what else the president might have done to make a definitive, as opposed to cosmetic, difference in plugging the hole: yell louder at BP, send in troops and tankers, or, as James Carville would have it, assume the role of Big Daddy? The spill is not a Tennessee Williams play, its setting notwithstanding, and it’s hard to see what more drama would add, particularly since No Drama Obama’s considerable talents do not include credible play-acting.

But life isn’t fair, and this president is in a far tougher spot in 2010 than his predecessor was in 2005.

Rich: There is nothing the President can do, but life isn't fair, therefore this could be worse than Obama's Katrina.

Oh well, Rich made a few dire predictions about health care too.

Seems those who are making these comparison are betting that Obama will mishandle a catastrophe that has no clear solution.

[jwirr]

22. My greatest fear here is that we will not be able to fix this at all. Then

they are going to blame President Obama because he didn't. People are not rational.

[Jennicut]

25. So because this is such a huge mess and people expect the govt to fix it all now

that means they will hate govt and think of it as even more useless? People are screaming for the govt.'s help. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. The very same people who scream about the govt. being evil, intrusive and bad are the same ones who turn around and yell about it being too damn slow to help. Duh. Years of gutting the regulations of govt. were done on purpose to make it seem broken. The Katrina disaster was no accident. FEMA was a mess on purpose. The MMS was trashed on purpose. On purpose to get what the conservatives could get out of pure greed and to make govt. seem inefficient as well. Now these same assholes like Jindal and co beg for the govt. help and yell at Obama about the govt. not working right. Well, yeah, that is what you guys wanted...Obama was elected in part to clean up that mess but he is held to an extremely high standard of getting it cleaned up in 1 and half years which took 8 years to break. And is some cases, it goes back 30 years to when Reagan started in about the era of big govt. being over.

[WinkyDink]

34. Like dieters: Take years to put it on, but want the weight gone in a trice.

I know whereof I speak. :-)

[Jennicut]

37. LOL. I like that analogy.

[WinkyDink]

32. The silver lining: Reminding the ADD populace of BUSH & Katrina.

[SpiralHawk]

38. the k and the r

eom

[freddie mertz]

39. Unreccers should READ THE PIECE before trashing it. It is NOT a diss on Obama.

It's not even really that much about Obama... it's about the wider scope of the disaster and its wider political and social meanings.

Please read it first.

[Me.]

43. Meh

They're gonna do what they're gonna do, but thanks.

[autorank]

48. Much worse, probably. Not done yet. n/t k*r