Flirting During a Disaster

On April 20, BP and Transocean wanted their deepwater rig to explode and sink and send 11 workers to meet their maker.

Now BP wants to take their own sweet time stopping and cleaning up the disaster. Yes, those Earth-hating, greedy bastards really enjoy losing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and sales, spending billions in clean up, while accumulating hundreds of millions more (likely) in fines. Most of all, they really enjoy losing untold billions in negative PR. And worse, if BP doesn't hurry up and stop the leak, the government, with neither the means or know how, is going to "push them out of the way appropriately" and really fix the problem.

If you're waiting for the punchline, grab a seat, it's going to be a while. That's not a joke.

There are people out there, including friends of mine, who actually believe this present line of horse hockey. Worse, the Obama Administration is toting this line too. And the more bluster and bloviation the Administration spouts and touts, the worse and more desperate they appear as the days go by.

It's "Nice job, Brownie" idiocy, only strung over weeks instead of a soundbite. And all they're trying to do is distance themselves from their recent endorsement of increasing off-shore drilling.

It's all political grandstanding and kow towing to one's base. During an on-going disaster that is to sink to the lowest of new lows. The truth is, nobody in the Obama Administration, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, has the first fucking clue of how to stop the leak. Instead, they think the next best thing they can do is to stand on the sidelines criticizing and admonishing BP and making empty rhetorical threats so they can look good in the eyes of their anti-corporate, hate-Big-Oil base.

Well, gee, that's helpful. Thank you very fucking much.

For all the admonishing liberals do to conservatives when they pander to their base on issues, they're utterly oblivious when they're engaging in shameless pandering themselves.

Look, there is only one appropriate and winning response that should be coming from the government and the Obama Administration: Shut up, step up and help out where one can. Point fingers—Obama being the World Fingerpointing Champ, especially toward the previous administration—have investigations, call for regulations and hearings and sub-committees of sub-committees, do it all. Just do it all later.