bobbo, can we ever learn when it is obvious in the first place says:

Nothing to learn here from nuclear energy either, because you know oil is oil and U-235 only has a half life of 700 Million years. Big difference there.

bobbo, can a one track fixation ever be relevant says:

#2–JB–so what should Obama have done when?

Impress us with your Presidential skills. Saying he should have cut taxes doesn’t count.

Hee, hee.

LDA says:

#4 jobs

I see no problem with questioning how Obama is responding, assuming you would ask the same of Bush. Bush wasn’t blamed for the hurricane he was criticized for the pathetic response to it.

Consistency is a rare and admirable virtue.

bobbo, can a one track fixation ever be relevant says:

jobs==you are an idiot. If the libs aren’t complaining about Bush, then you dumb ass retarded Repuglicans will criticizes us for it hypothetically. But not without mischaracterizing the facts horribly. My god, what a worthless bunch you are.

BTW–I do blame the Bush/Cheney Cartel for the absemce pf regulatory control/rules that directly led to this disaster. Obama too for not having fixed it in his time in office. But failing to fix is not as directly responsible as breaking in the first place.

I can answer the following question but doubt you can: what do you think Obama should have done and when. Note: Given your retarded presentation so far, I won’t be holding my breath.

deowll says:

#5 Actually the main person at fault for not getting more help into Louisiana/ New Orleans faster was the governor of the state who was asked do you need help and thought they could handle the situation and did not so smart things like blocking sending supplies into New Orleans and failing to provide transportation out and of course the Mayer of the city who was reluctant to remove everybody until after everything truly tanked out.

At some point the Feds started to act even though I’m not sure they were legally allowed to do so and of course they did a poor job in part because some of the people in charge were political hacks and in part because the problem was way worse than the worst anyone living had ever had to deal with.

I give Bush a D which is about what I give Obama on the oil spill.

On Obama’s impact on the long term survival and prosperity of the nation I give Obama a Z. It would be lower but I ran out of letters.

I would also have to rate the present government as being so corrupt as to be by far the worst I can remember. I don’t even think the people running the Fed Gov now even see the corruption all around them. They call it business as usual.

jobs says:

#7 Why do you libs hate so much?

BubbaRay says:

# 10 BmoreBadBoy said, on June 12th, 2010 at 2:47 pm

>> Instead of criticizing them for what they get wrong, maybe we should feel sympathetic for the huge boulder sitting atop their shoulders. You should all ask yourselves, what if Atlas Shrugged?

When they rape you for all the money they do, literally lose a trillion of it, spend it on bailouts and “stimulus”, pass a health care bill no one can pay for, create the useless TSA, get us into debt our grandkids can’t pay off, then they darned well better figure out how to do something about the spill. Doesn’t look like they’re doing much else except waging war and worrying about who’s getting elected.

bobbo, politics fail when it becomes reactionary says:

Well thanks JB–more than most of your knuckle dragging chorus can come up with:

Obama knew the magnitude of the problem during the first week. // No, he didn’t. Still today we don’t know how much oil is getting dumped. He did know oil was being spilled and it would be some time before it got capped/fixed.

Carol Browner told Obama at one of the earliest briefings in late April that the blowout would likely lead to an unprecedented environmental disaster /// Again, no specific knowledge. Of course a blown oil well is “bad” for the environment but for the first few weeks, the oil standard was the Exxon Valdez==manageable perhaps if emergency capping proedures worked and the wind blows the right direction.

He should have flown down there immediately and setup a New Orleans White House and stayed there to work. /// ABSOLUTELY NOT. It is damaging to the USA to have its President “captured” by any single issue, especially one so removed from what a President can actually do to affect. Someone lower down the chain ONLY. Carter should show you how ineffective a captured President is in image and effect.

He should have fired Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who went white water rafting in the Grand Canyon even though he knew about the spill. /// No. He should still fire Salazar for not reinstituting a broad range of regulatory controls==like requiring resubmission of actual plans that could possibly be used to respond to spills. We all know Bush Co f*cked up everything he touched, so the mandate should have been to get fixing it.

Obama should have called the CEO of BP into his office (or at least talked to him on the phone) during the first week. Duh! This should have been a no-brainer. /// I agree. But would still ask: “and say what? recommend what action that BP wasn’t undertaking already?” ((There are answers to that==get skimming/oil extraction boats out into the Gulf in numbers much larger than are present even now.))

Obama should not have sic’d the lawyers on anyone connected to the spill. The government should have worked with BP not against them. The lawsuits can always come later. /// I agree.

Obama should have been a leader and not a follower. /// Those on the scene say he has done alot==just doesn’t get photo ops as much as we might all like. His “kicking ass” statement was about the dumbest thing he has ever said. He’s feeling pressure from left and right extremes.

He should stop pointing his finger and blaming everyone. /// I agree–time for that later.

He should roll up his sleeves and get cracking on the problem. /// Like any aircraft accident, the time to apply yourself is before the crash.

Any questions? /// No. Bottom line is you don’t have much and I offered more of a specific than you have. Still==JB, better done than I had expected.

A major problem here is the infantile suggestion that the President of the USA is supposed to have all the answers, to be a miracle worker, to be able to walk into the tide and roll the ocean back or to cleanse it of oil. He’s only human and he deserves our support until, like Bush, he proves himself too much an idiot/liar to deserve it. I do think he is tending that way, too much the politician, but not on the oil disaster just yet.

bobbo, politics fail when it becomes reactionary says:

Harvard Law Presenter Mr Jeffrey Miron “Libertarianism in the USA” says that the limited liability corporation by structure avoids full exposure when they engage in risky behavior such as the Gulf Oil Spill. He suggests a different approach when risky endeavors are undertaken is for the Company to POST A BOND against future damages. He says that would cause a shift that could have unintended consequences but is an alternative.

So, he has too many crackpot liebertardian ideas==like healthcare is a commodity that would benefit from greater competition ((whats he smoking?)) but as any good college professor and book author on the subject, he shows libertarianism can offer alternatives to improve the status quo.

Given the failure so far to get our military home, stop having gays as scapgoats, failure to re-regulate Banks, introduce any true transparency in government and on and on, I don’t expect Obama to pick up on such an idea.

BadBoy==you have yet to tell us what color the sky is in your admittedly imaginary world. Simple? Yes indeed.

bobbo, libertarianism fails when it becomes Dogma says:

Awh BadBoy==just how old are you? Permanent Larval Stage?

Grow up.

bobbo, libertarianism fails when it becomes Dogma says:

Holy Crap! The liebertarian (David Boaz) wants a Milton Friedman Noble Prize for Freedom for his financial expertise. “because freedom is atleast as important as the other prizes and is the pre-condition for progress in those areas.” Yea–like health, education, and general welfare is not at all necessary for progress. What dopes.

Friedman and half the Cato Institute should be in jail.

A bright line separates dogma from reality. Sad how mental illness when surrounded by like minds can continue its bastards ways without correction.

bobbo, libertarianism fails when it becomes Dogma says:

I’m no geologic engineer but I wonder if its possible to check radar/sonar scans of the ocean floor to see if its suitable for drilling in the first place?

If such tech is available, I wonder if it was ever even used?

I heard a month ago that what blew the well was an overpressure of the well hardware caused by of course the pressure of the oil deposit they drilled into==way bigger than they thought and BP knew this from day ONE because that is what caused the well to blow in the first place.

Nothing but “drill baby drill”/make money while we can and screw the consequences.

I won’t bet money that Obama will use this to push thru a real green initiative/jobs program for america based on renewable energy and the national security benefit of getting off foreign oil. No, I haven’t seen Obama really trying to push the establishment. Even healthcare is not an exception to that depending on how you define the relevant issues. The “change” would have been single payer.

Drilling the hole until it blows up.

Stossel had an opponent of libertarian philosophy on for a segment. He destroyed Stossel et al. It highlighted the lib theory is based on maximum profit as the maximum good. “If BP had been over regulated and had to drill two safety wells at the same time to advert this disaster, then gas would go up by 5 dollars a gallon!”===Good. Then we would use less gas and get on with energy independence.

Yes, there is a reality beyond the bumper stickers.

B. Dog says:

I’m with Awake on this one. It’s time to nuke it.As long as we’re at it, lets bring out a six pack of nukes. We might want to nuke some other places, too.

Mr. Fusion says:

#16, benson,

Ooh boy – you left yourself wide open for a major slamdown!

Obama knew the magnitude of the problem during the first week. Carol Browner told Obama at one of the earliest briefings in late April that the blowout would likely lead to an unprecedented environmental disaster,

OK, but you don’t tell us what he could have done. BP signed a permit 580+ pages long where they categorically stated they could handle a spill much larger than what happened.

He should have flown down there immediately and setup a New Orleans White House and stayed there to work.

He should have fired Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who went white water rafting in the Grand Canyon even though he knew about the spill.

You don’t say why. Did you expect Salazar to get a scuba tank on his back, swim down, and plug the leak by himself? Would staring at a TV screen watching oil come out of a pipe a mile under the surface have fixed anything?

Obama should have called the CEO of BP into his office (or at least talked to him on the phone) during the first week. Duh! This should have been a no-brainer.

And said what to the CEO? This is an oil problem. The CEO is an oil man. Only a right wing nut hypocrite would suggest telling an expert how to do their job.

Obama should not have sic’d the lawyers on anyone connected to the spill. The government should have worked with BP not against them. The lawsuits can always come later.

Lawsuits are always part of the problem, especially when it is something this size. Maybe you could be more specific though and suggest what the government did to hinder BP. Remember, BP’s permit stated they could handle a spill several times larger. They stated they did not need the government’s help.

Obama should have been a leader and not a follower. He should stop pointing his finger and blaming everyone. He should roll up his sleeves and get cracking on the problem.

Again, you don’t tell us what he should/could have done. Generalities don’t tell us anything. Face it, the US government doesn’t have the material or equipment to handle an oil spill. They do not own ANY submersibles that can operate at these depths. They do have any engineers that can cap a wildcat well.

As an example, after the Kuwait War the government called in several private firms to cap the damaged and burning oil wells. Bush I and the military knew well enough to leave it to the experts.

Any questions?

Did you think about what the President is capable of before you started suggesting he be there? It wouldn’t have mattered if it was Obama, or Bush II. The government is not equipped to deal with oil wells that blow up. There are many examples of this across our nation.

When a State or city decides to build / rebuild / pave a highway, they hire a paving company to do it. Even though they may own thousands of miles of road, they leave it to the private sector to do the actual work.

When the government needs a new ship for the Navy, they hire a contractor to design and build it.

When there is a disaster with government property, for example the I-35W Bridge collapse in Minneapolis, they hire private contractors to clean up the mess and build a new bridge.

BUT, here you want the President to move to New Orleans and personally plug the leak. Your disconnect to reality is noticeable.