[FairfieldLife] Re: Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: Judy, any comments on this one? I get crap like this all the time from a conservative friend. Usually I'm working and don't have time to respond. If I did, I probably wouldn't come up with anything as well-informed as you would. Feel free to skip it, but if you feel inclined to write something, please do. I'll take a shot. I'm not wildly thrilled with how Obama has handled this myself, but for somewhat different reasons. All this should be seen in the light of constant complaints from both left and right that Obama hasn't been tough enough on BP. Maybe the guy who wrote this wasn't one of them, but if he was, it's a bit hypocritical for him now to dump on Obama for thuggery. snip Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his boot on the neck of BP I thought that turn of phrase was awful, myself. Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts so I know whose ass to kick. NBC is responsible for misunderstandings about this remark. They released a sound bite of Obama saying this, and it's been endlessly repeated as though it were, as the writer says, carefully considered. But here's what Lauer had said that Obama was responding to: Critics are...saying..., this is not the time to meet with experts and advisors. This is a time to spend more time in the Gulf and I never thought I'd say this to a President but kick some butt. If you now listen to Obama's response, you'll see that he's echoing Lauer's wording: He's having meetings with experts and advisors so he knows whose ass to kick. You can hear this very clearly in his vocal inflection when you know what Lauer said: KICK. whose to ass If he'd come up with the phrase on his own without reference to what Lauer said, it would be: ASS whose to kick. snip Then there is Obama's decision to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf. This penalizes companies with better safety records than BP's and will result in many advanced drilling rigs being sent to offshore oil fields abroad. This is a tough one; it's going to be very painful for those who make their living from deepwater drilling. But it isn't just a matter of safety records. Deepwater drilling is inherently dangerous, and accidents can happen even to those with excellent records. Part of the problem is that the blowout preventers aren't fail-safe; part of the problem is that safety requirements have not been strictly imposed by the MMS. A good safety record may be as much due to luck as anything else. The whole system needs a major overhaul to minimize the risks. Because the *consequences* of a blowout are just too dire. At this point *nobody knows* how to plug a blown-out well in deep water; nobody knows how to effectively clean up the oil. There may not be a good way to do either. Under Bush, MMS simply accepted oil companies' assurances that if a spill were to occur, it could be handled satisfactorily without serious damage to the environment. The blowout preventers were cited as fail-safe mechanisms to ensure a well could be sealed after a blowout with minimal escape of oil. None of that was true; the oil companies knew it, and MMS probably knew it too. Unfortunately, Obama had so many things on his priority list that reforming MMS wasn't near the top. Salazar got rid of some of the worst of the corruption, but there were all kinds of ineffiency and slackness and regulatory capture that he didn't even make a start on. The justification offered was an Interior Department report supposedly peer reviewed by experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering. But it turned out the drafts the experts saw didn't include any recommendation for a moratorium. Eight of the cited experts have said they oppose the moratorium as more economically devastating than the oil spill and counterproductive to safety. Don't know the full story on this. I'm inclined to think the administration tried to pull a fast one and got caught. snip And what about the decision not to waive the Jones Act, which bars foreign-flag vessels from coming to the aid of the Gulf cleanup? The Bush administration promptly waived it after Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration hasn't and claims unconvincingly that, gee, there aren't really any foreign vessels that could help. Not true, almost certainly knowingly false. There are many foreign vessels currently helping out. And the Jones Act doesn't *need* to be waived because it has to do with vessels shipping commercial goods; it doesn't apply in this situation. snip Or the decision to deny Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to deploy barges to skim oil from the Gulf's surface. Can't do that until we see if they've got enough life preservers and fire equipment. Can you imagine the outrage if
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
Thanks Judy. That was great. I sent it to him.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: Thanks Judy. That was great. I sent it to him. And a whole lot of good it'll do, I'm sure!
[FairfieldLife] Re: Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: snip Shoot, stupid software helpfully deleted my careful spacing and made hash of what I was trying to show. Try it with dots instead of spaces. Echoing Lauer, the voice goes down, then up: ..KICK. whose.to.. ...ass. Without reference to what Lauer said, the voice would have gone up, then down: ...ASS.. whose.to... ..kick.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jst...@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend jstein@ wrote: snip Shoot, stupid software helpfully deleted my careful spacing and made hash of what I was trying to show. Try it with dots instead of spaces. Echoing Lauer, the voice goes down, then up: ..KICK. whose.to.. ...ass. Without reference to what Lauer said, the voice would have gone up, then down: ...ASS.. whose.to... ..kick. Nuts. Never mind! Forgot it wouldn't come out monospaced.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
So you aren't well informed about conservative thought? That's interesting. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer r...@... wrote: Judy, any comments on this one? I get crap like this all the time from a conservative friend. Usually I'm working and don't have time to respond. If I did, I probably wouldn't come up with anything as well-informed as you would. Feel free to skip it, but if you feel inclined to write something, please do. Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill By: Michael http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bios/michael-barone.html Barone Senior Political Analyst June 20, 2010 http://media.washingtonexaminer.com/images/250*157/w.obama.0620.jpg President Barack Obama waves as he exits Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Friday. (Cliff Owen/AP) Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's Gulf oil spill. Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his boot on the neck of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as a boot stamping on a human face -- forever. Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet. Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts so I know whose ass to kick. Attacking others is a standard campaign tactic when you're in political trouble, and certainly BP, which appears to have taken unwise shortcuts in the Gulf, is an attractive target. But you don't always win arguments that way. The Obama White House gleefully took on Dick Cheney on the issue of terrorist interrogations. It turned out that more Americans agreed with Cheney's stand, despite his low poll numbers, than Obama's. Then there is Obama's decision to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf. This penalizes companies with better safety records than BP's and will result in many advanced drilling rigs being sent to offshore oil fields abroad. The justification offered was an Interior Department report supposedly peer reviewed by experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering. But it turned out the drafts the experts saw didn't include any recommendation for a moratorium. Eight of the cited experts have said they oppose the moratorium as more economically devastating than the oil spill and counterproductive to safety. This was blatant dishonesty by the administration, on an Orwellian scale. In defense of a policy that has all the earmarks of mindless panic, that penalizes firms and individuals guilty of no wrongdoing and that will worsen rather than improve our energy situation. Ineffective thuggery. And what about the decision not to waive the Jones Act, which bars foreign-flag vessels from coming to the aid of the Gulf cleanup? The Bush administration promptly waived it after Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration hasn't and claims unconvincingly that, gee, there aren't really any foreign vessels that could help. The more plausible explanation is that this is a sop to the maritime unions, part of the union movement that gave Obama and other Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle. It's the Chicago way: Dance with the girl that brung ya. Or the decision to deny Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to deploy barges to skim oil from the Gulf's surface. Can't do that until we see if they've got enough life preservers and fire equipment. That inspired blogger Rand Simberg to write a blog post he dated June 1, 1940: The evacuation of British and French troops from the besieged French city of Dunkirk was halted today, over concerns that many of the private vessels that had been deployed for the task were unsafe for troop transport. Finally, the $20 billion escrow fund that Obama pried out of the BP treasury at the White House when he talked for the first time, 57 days after the rig exploded, with BP Chairman Tony Hayward. It's pleasing to think that those injured by BP will be paid off speedily, but House Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a shakedown. For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg. Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg. The Framers stopped at due process of law. Obama doesn't. If he sees any
