Kneeling to pick up tar balls on an oil-fouled beach and listening to “heartbreaking stories” of loss, President Barack Obama personally confronted the spreading damage wrought by the crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico — and the bitter anger that’s rising onshore.
“What can he really do?” said Billy Ward, a developer who comes to his beach house here every weekend and, like many other locals, had little positive to say about Obama’s trip to the beleaguered region on Friday. “If he wants to do something, let him get out there and pump some mud and cement into that hole. Just fix it. Help us.”
BP PLC, even less popular here, kept up its efforts to “just fix it,” using its “top kill” procedure to try to stop the deep oil well leak by pumping in heavy mud. If it doesn’t work, something BP says will be known within a couple of days, Obama’s own problems will only compound.
He said he understands people “want it made right” and that their frustration won’t fade until the oil is stopped and cleaned up.
“It’s an assault on our shores, on our people, on the regional economy and on communities like this one,” the president said from this small barrier island town threatened by what is now established as the largest oil spill in American history. “People are watching their livelihoods wash up on the beach.”
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Updates:
3:38 pm EDT, May 29th, 2010 — Steyn: King Barack the Verbose
3:42 pm EDT, May 29th, 2010 — Krauthammer: Whose Blowout Is It, Anyway?
5:37 pm EDT, May 29th, 2010 — Yakabuski: Spewing oil doesn’t have Obama gushing
The ‘catastrophe does not threaten Oblamebush’s presidency. Oblamebush’s disconnected incompetence threatens his presidency.
Who does he think he is, Bush?
I find no mention at all in this article about what happened after “the One” walked to the water’s edge, knelt in the sand and proceeded with his plan to use his powers to part the waters. What are they trying to hide?
Brian “What are they trying to hide?”
That Obama isn’t King Canute.
Charles Krauthammer wrote: “Obama has never been overly modest about his own powers. Two years ago next week, he declared that history will mark his ascent to the presidency as the moment when ‘our planet began to heal’ and ‘the rise of the oceans began to slow.’ Well, when you anoint yourself King Canute, you mustn’t be surprised when your subjects expect you to command the tides.”
The whole point about King Canute …even way back then was that the King could NOT do everything. As Mark Steyn says , Quote:
Poor old Canute has been traduced by posterity. He was the Viking king of Denmark , England , Norway , and bits of Sweden , which, as Joe Biden would say, was a big (expletive) deal back in the 11th century.
And, like Good King Barack, he had a court full of oleaginous sycophants who were forever telling him, as Newsweek editor Evan Thomas said of Obama, that he’s “sort of God.”
So one day, weary of being surrounded by Chris Matthews types with the legs a-tingling 24/7, Canute ordered the footmen to take his throne down to the shore and he’d command the incoming waves to stay the hell out.
Just like Obama, he would steer the very currents. Next thing you know, Canute’s got seaweed in his wingtips and is back at the palace wringing out his Argyll socks.
“Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings,” he said, “for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.”
In other words, he was teaching his courtiers a lesson in the limits of kingly power.
King Canute actually was wise though, whereas Obama is suffering from delusions of grandeur. Sad really but probably nothing that can’t be cured using high enough doses of modern anti-psychotic medicines.
If that picture of Obama kneeling in the sand, contemplating nature, oil and his feet of clay was a good pr stunt, then I should be running the cleanup operation. He looked lost and forlorn – the circumstances cannot be controlled by charisma and fawning media. My goodness, grab a stiff upper lip and at least look presidential! Cheers.
And what was the Republican stand on off shore drilling when they were in power — why Bush lifted the ban.
‘Bush calls for coastal oil drilling’ — Democrats object’ whats wrong with this picture?
http://www.ocala.com/article/20080619/NEWS/806190331
‘Drill baby drill’ — their all the same when it comes to drilling for oil.
Wheres the tea party on this important topic?
Cheney: ‘Drill, drill, drill’
VP Dicky Cheney called for a substantial increase in domestic drilling for oil, including in environmentally sensitive areas!
http://www.grist.org/article/drill-team-coach
Is America hooked on ‘cheap oil?’
There are nearly 4000 active oil and gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and tens of thousands active around the globe.
Map of oil and gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
http://tinyurl.com/34mvpn4
It has been that way since before Bush and Cheney, and it will remain so after Obama. Oil platform technology is proven, though it will never be foolproof. However some amount of risk is always involved in anything important. When the risks are weighed against the rewards, the intelligent answer will always be a hearty “drill, baby, drill” followed soon afterward by “drill, drill, drill” because without these oil and gas platforms fuel prices would skyrocket far beyond our means, and we would soon find ourselves headed back toward the middle ages.
Small comfort Brian, to all those americans whose livelihoods depended on fishing along the gulf coast and those who rely on tourism are now destroyed.
I dont think that many americans who live in this area will forget both the Democrats and Republicans who looked the other way on safety/environmental concerns in the name of oil drilling.
According to tonites news, there appears to be no ready answer to plugging that leaking BP undersea oil well. Probably the worse environmental disaster ever to hit the U.S.
This could mean the end of BP as we know it. There are already talks of breaking it up while others like Exxon are waiting in the wings to pick up some of BP’s assets.