Deepwater Oil Spill & Obama's "Heckuva Job Brownie" Moment

Ever since he became President, Barack Obama has displayed a disturbingly consistent pattern of behavior.
 
May 5, 2010 - PRLog -- Ever since he became President, Barack Obama has displayed a disturbingly consistent pattern of behavior:

Ignoring the desires of the base that elected him in favor of consistently failed attempts at bi-partisan “co-operation” with Republicans,

and – here’s the kicker – OTHER actors who are most definitely not part of that base,

above all big corporations and industries who have made no secret of their opposition to even his weakest efforts at “change.”

The examples are too numerous to mention, but in passing we can at least reference the nonsensical “debate” about health “care” “reform” that was finally passed without any help at all from his supposed “friends across the aisle.”

Despite the total lack of Republican help – if not to say the often violent oppositionary rhetoric of its most active element, the Tea Party gang –

Obama did actually reach back to his ever-seemingly brief past as a Chicago community organizer and then pol, and get at least some version of health “care” change passed in Congress.

While no one still really has any idea of what improvements, if any, Obamacare is going to bring Americans,

there was general agreement that a failure to have passed the bill would have been disastrous for him, not just at home, but abroad as well.

In the general rush of relief that accompanied this “victory” –

again, accomplished without the help of any Republicans OR the major health industry giants funding them: “Big Pharma” / insurance companies / hospitals / HMOs / doctors –

many members of his ever-shrinking “base” thought he finally got the message about who his real friends were, and things were, finally, going to change.

Unfortunately for them, they got a rude shock shortly after, on the last day of March, when Obama announced new plans for extensive offshore oil drilling, an initiative that not only came out of the blue, but put in play whole new areas that had previously been ruled off-limits.

As usual, of course, it wasn’t nearly enough for the Republicans or their patrons in the oil industry,

but it was nevertheless a devastating blow to environmentalists and other components of his base,

who couldn’t believe Obama was “betraying” his / their principles so soon after the hard-fought health “care” fight, where all his “bi-partisan” efforts had proven so blatantly fruitless.

Nevertheless, the upset over this was soon lost a few weeks later, on Friday, April 16, the day after “Tax Day”,

with the seemingly stunning announcement the SEC was bringing civil – not criminal – fraud charges against Goldman Sachs, the current embodiment of Wall Street evil.

To be sure, some observers – including ourselves – were, and remain, a bit bothered by several aspects of the whole situation,

but the general take among Obama supporters was that, in the words of the Baseline Scenario’s Simon Johnson, “the Pecora moment” had arrived, and Obama was finally going to take on Wall Street.

It was in the context of this major brouhaha over the SEC v GS – highlighted by a long-scheduled “Goldman Sachs Day” on Capitol Hill about 10 days later, on April 27 – that the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, literally, erupted on April 21st.

If the explosion hadn’t been so huge – or long-lasting – it might almost have escaped national and global notice,

overshadowed as it was by the fact of the SEC suit, and the – in our view, not very impressive – theatrics of the Senate hearing.

Unfortunately for BP – and Obama – AND our no-bid contract “friend” from the Iraq scam / invasion Halliburton, whose cementing job was directly involved in the disaster,

the spill was not contained either quickly or effectively, but began to, literally, seep into people’s consciousness as perhaps one of the greatest ecological disasters in US history.

To be sure, coming on top of Earth Day, Obama issued the requisite statement of concern, but he certainly didn’t seem to be lighting any fires, so to speak, under anyone to make this situation a top priority of the Federal government.

Indeed, it took the president nine days to even address the tragedy and 12 days to allocate federal resources.

On the one hand, this was somewhat understandable, as there was a great deal of uncertainty about what was actually happening in the Gulf,

and, more importantly, there was so much buzz about Goldman – a story that had been waiting to break ever since Black September 2008 – it was hardly surprising people were generally focused on that.

On the other, there were just a few too many eerie similarities between Obama’s seeming “no drama” approach to the oil spill and the “Heckuva job, Brownie” nonchalance of George W. Bush with Hurricane Katrina –

not to mention the fact BOTH events were taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, and threatening the very same people and eco-system that had been so devastated by the hurricane.

But it wasn’t until a week after the blaze had started that Obama stated his administration would respond “aggressively” to the situation ....

If you would like to read this story in full, please visit http://www.economywatch.com/ at:

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