On the 87th day of the crisis and with possibly 184 million gallons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has been able to cap the breach on the well leaking crude as a result of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform in April.
The next 48 hours are critical to see how if this cap will hold, and all involved, and those in the affected regions, have their fingers crossed.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, this is not the end, nor the beginning of the end, but possibly the end of the beginning.
Weeks ago I emailed my congressman, Rush Holt, a Democrat representing New Jersey's 12th District, to thank him for his opposition to President Obama's proposed expansion of oil drilling in the Atlantic (since suspended). Also onboard were Democrats Frank Pallone, who's district includes many shore communities in Monmouth County, and both of our Senators, Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez. I suggested at the time that all New Jersey legislators regardless of political affiliation should oppose expansion of oil drilling off of our coast; the disaster in the Gulf should have opened eyes....if it did not, those eyes are either blind or not worthy of one's vote.
Congressman Holt was kind enough to send me an old fashioned "snail mail" response to my email, which I received yesterday. He is one of the good ones, ladies and gents.
Below, is the letter (minus my home address and my real name; that's right, "Hugh Jee" is an acronymn).
My thanks to Congressman Holt for his thoughtful and personal response.
I watched COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann the last hour, with guest John L. Wathen, the Alabama conservationist and activist, the "Hurricane Creekkeeper" who accompanied a pilot on a flight over the oil spill affected areas of the Gulf of Mexico. What he saw was a marine version of Dante's Inferno, with dead and dying dolphins, perhaps 100 or more, whales covered with tar balls, fires on the water surface, a toxic air for hundreds of square miles.
It has become obvious that the level of this disaster is larger than anything that BP has fessed up to, or what the government has prepared the American people for.
Mr. Wathen asks the question, "Will the Gulf ever be the same again?"
Sadly, the situation seems to have gone from the dire to the impossible.
Here's more from his interview with Keith Olbermann.
President Obama is interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show in the video below. He responds to critics, and tells Lauer of his intent to kick "the right person's ass" who is responsible for generating this crisis.
"PERCEPTION IS REALITY" .......Jonathan Alter, Newsweek contributor, frequent commentator on MSNBC, and author of a newly published book about Year One of the Obama Presidency called The Promise, was a guest recently on Real Time with Bill Maher. The conversation turned to how Mr. Obama was handling the situation in the Gulf with the oil spill from the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon platform, and the criticism he was receiving for his response in the days after the crisis began. Though the administration did about as much as humanly possible to respond to a situation without precedent, Mr. Obama's personal reaction and demeanor was the subject of scrutiny and more than a little criticism. His style seemed to many to be detached and aloof when many Americans felt anger and wanted to vent. Alter told the following story from more than 60 years ago.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral procession snaked through the streets of Washington DC. There were two men standing together in the throngs on onlookers; the two were total strangers. As the caisson carrying Roosevelt's body passed by, one man fell to the pavement, overcome with tears. The second man helped the first man up. "Are you alright?" the second man asked the first man. The first man responded that he was OK, but felt heartsick at the death of Roosevelt. "Did you know Mr. Roosevelt?", the second man asked. The first man looked at the second man and said, "No, I never even met the President......but he knew me".
Maybe that was the essence of Franklin Roosevelt's greatness. He connected to the little guy, even though he was a wealthy patrician from New York's Old Dutch aristocracy. FDR was a a handsome youngish dilettante when tragedy struck, and he contracted polio, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life. But his illness made him more human, and his personal struggles gave him a connection to the struggles of Everyman. He WAS the Great Communicator forty years before Ronald Reagan, and a the man who steered America through the two greatest crises of the 20th century.
I voted for Barack Obama, and I've contributed to his presidential campaign, and I've been a supporter of policies. I want him to succeed, and I'll chide anyone who cheerleads for his failure, because it would be a failure for all of us as a nation.
Mr. Obama is cool, calm, and collected; it was part of his appeal as a candidate. He was jovial and rational, while at times his opponent seemed to become unglued.
But I must say.....I am among those who wished to see more anger from Obama the President in reaction to the disaster in the Gulf. I wanted to see Vince Lomabrdi in someone's face; we got understated Tom Landry seemingly, quietly analyzing and sorting it out....and initially trusting the perpetrator of this mess, BP, to find away to stop the leak and clean it up.
Clearly no matter what Mr. Obama does he'll be attacked by the usual gasbags on the right; there's no news there. But when James Carville, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Howard Fineman, Maureen Dowd and others from the left or centrist media chime in about Obama's lack of emotion in the wake of this crisis that must be cause for concern. And the revelation that the President has not contacted BP CEO Tony Hayward is, at the very least, a real headscratcher. It's not often fair to compare the styles of one President versus another, but questions need to be asked how leaders of the past may have responded to this crisis. Imagine the reaction of a Lyndon Baines Johnson to an oil spill of this magnitude threatening our shores and rendering hundreds of square miles of marshlands and open waters lifeless. Johnson once called Robert Kennedy, whom he had no love for, a "piss ant". If he would say that to a man who later served (briefly) as his Attorney General, LBJ would have taken Hayward to task, and in all likelihood very forcefully. I wouldn't rule out LBJ threatening personally to shoot Tony Hayward on sight because of his low balls and "misstatements"....and I'm sure thousands of Louisiana residents would have looked the other way, and would have never seen a thing.
Now I'm not advocating violence to anyone (ie, Tony Hayward) regarding his words and "actions" in this crisis....but I really believe most Americans would have really wanted to see Barack Obama get into a room with the guy and ask him when the BS is going to stop; low balling the amount of the spill, the effectiveness of a top kill, the effectiveness of a bottom kill, how the cap is working, and of course, the strain this has put on Hayward who complained about getting "his life back".
Mr. Obama....a lot of us are cheering you on, and want you to succeed. But some of us want you to get mad as hell....and its OK to show it.....and make sure that those responsible for this disaster are going to pay with some serious jail time. Lives were lost, hundreds of other lives have been thrown in turmoil, and a precious resource has been infected and may be terminally ill. In natural history we have seen extinction due to comets, ice ages, droughts, famine and pestilence.
But the pending extinction in the Gulf is simply the result of human greed.
"You will not be abandoned. You will not be left behind. We are on your side and we will see this through. I am the president and the buck stops with me."
Today President Barack Obama returned to the Gulf Coast to inspect the efforts to stop the oil leak that has spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The President has taken much criticism, some from members of his own party, about his seeming detachment from the dire situation in the Gulf. With his appearance today, Mr. Obama tried to reassure the public that he is in charge, and in the words of BP CEO Tony Hayward...
"We are working for the government. The government is running it (the effort to stop the leak)."
It was a memorable scene for fans of HBO's new series Treme, which takes place in New Orleans in the months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005. Creighton Bernette (played by John Goodman) is a college professor/author and die-hard citizen of New Orleans who becomes frustrated at the pace of government and public response to the devastation of the city and life he loves. Creighton discovers that newfangled YouTube from his teenage daughter, and decides to air his grievances on all those who say New Orleans should be abandoned or left to implode on its own.
What follows is probably something many people in the region want to say about those who seek to minimize the impact the Deepwater Horizon spill on the Gulf Coast region, or to all those who choose to look the other way.
WARNING!!!!If you're easily offended, skip the video.
If the series survives for the next five years, perhaps Creighton should do a followup for 2010.
Charlie Melancon represents Louisiana's 3rd District in the United States House of Representatives. As shown by the map, the Louisiana 3rd encompasses the areas being directly affected by the oil spewing forth from the Deepwater Horizon disaster; the fishing and shrimping has been destroyed, the wetlands have been fouled by the toxic goop, wildlife has been killed, and a legacy of life in the Delta might be at an end.
This morning Congressman Melancon spoke before a House Energy Subcommittee regarding the disaster that has struck his home and is destroying the lives of the people of his district.. He became emotional...and let his heartbreak show.
This afternoon President Obama defended the administration's response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, calling it an "unprecedented disaster" in a press conference held in the East Room of the White House.
Mr. Obama also said the following....
"I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down."
Below, the President in his own words regarding the situation.
For the related Associated Press story of the press conference, click here.
You'd have to look long and hard to find more loyal Democrat than James Carville. Carville is a native Louisianan who today on GOOD MORNING AMERICA slammed the Obama administration for their handling of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Also interviewed is ABC contributor Matthew Dowd, the host is George Stephanopoulos.
Opinion
Some of my progressive brethren may not be happy with my stance on the President's response, but BP's failures to stop the leak should have prompted a much stronger reaction from the administration. Tonight on HARD BALL Chris Matthews remarked on how Harry Truman would have responded; he would have tried to federalize every tanker in the Gulf and use them to suck up the oil slick. To overreach his authority in that way might cost Obama a second term, but you do it because it's the right thing to do....saving the Gulf of Mexico is more important than any Presidency, Matthews said.....and I agree with him.
Mr. Obama....you're needed in Louisiana. Its been 24 days since your last visit, but you're needed NOW. Desperately.
Barbara Boxer's fund raiser in San Francisco should have been put on a backburner.
"They (sources in Louisiana) think the White House just doesn't 'get it'"....Howard Fineman
Last night on MSNBC's COUNTDOWN, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman discuss the response of the Obama Administration to the failure of BP to stop the Deepwater Horizon's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, BP's use of toxic dispersants to break up the slicks, and try to answer the question....who's really in charge?
A word to the Obama Administration....if you lose Olbermann, you'll lose progressive America, and a good chunk of the Dems and independents who supported this president.
BP, you've had your chance to try and stop it....it was a problem created in your quest to make some big bucks from America's insatiable addiction to oil. Its been more than a month now, and the oil continues to spill out of the hole in the Gulf of Mexico that you dug. The amount of oil you say is spilling seems to vary on a daily basis, as do reasons why your latest attempts to correct the situation has failed. Allegedly you have the technology to plug up the leak, but we have yet to see any tangible results.
But its time for you to step aside and let the federal government take over. BP can't get it done, and the consequences are too great to let them continue to fail. Its time for the Obama administration to take over the situation because its become bigger than just an industrial accident; it has the potential to do to the Gulf and even the Eastern Seaboard what the mismanagement of soil did in the 1930's, creating a Dust Bowl in America's heartland.
If the spill is allowed to continue unabated, the consequences will be economic devastation for the Gulf Coast states, extinction of species of animal and plant life, and tourism and its trickle down effect will be removed from those economies for at least a generation. This cannot be allowed to happen.
If the government takes over, then Barack Obama will own the problem.....and that's just the way it will have to be. Because to let BP continue in its futile attempts to plug the leak would be even more damaging to all concerned.
To the libertarians who believe government should stay out of the way of private enterprise, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is Exhibit A why we need government regulation, and why government is needed to step in when all else fails. I don't see too many people screaming about "big government" when floods, earthquakes, hurricanes...and oil spills....destroy all they have, and the population needs more than the charity of others.
Political fallout for intervening be damned....the situation is too dire to be concerned about that now. The nation that used its best and brightest to harness the atom and and send men to the moon in past generations has the capacity to end this ecological and economic nightmare.
If this requires the 21st century equivalent of the Manhattan Project, just do it...right now.
What we need now is the political will.
Mr. President....it's time to act now. Good luck, and may God bless.....for all of our sakes.
On Day Two of Congressional hearings with principles involved in the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico and the subsequent oil spill that is polluting the waters and threatening the shorelines of the Gulf States, we've managed to learn one thing; it was the fault of the guy sitting to the other guy's right.
So said the representatives of the companies involved in this environmental and economic disaster. Except for the the guy at the end of the table- he started blaming the guys on his left. The representatives and speakers at the hearing included Lamar McKay of British Petroleum (BP), Tim Probert of Halliburton, and Steven Newman of Transocean.
And the situation gets even more interesting because the Swiss rig was flagged not by the United States or Great Britain or Switzerland (offshore drilling in Switzerland?), but by the Marshall Islands, which has less stringent safety standards than do the US or the UK.
Click here for an in depth report from the Los Angeles Times.
Below, videos from Keith Olbermann of COUNTDOWN and from Rachel Maddow, both on MSNBC>
