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William Pfaff
The conduct of
I watched the president on international television as he walked on a
He looked sad. He bent over and picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. He shook his head in concern. A cutaway showed his speeches earlier in this affair declaring that his administration is in charge of the great effort to save America's coast and waters from the terrible pollution taking place, and the
I cannot imagine a more compelling portrayal of impotence -- of pathetic abdication and submission by this administration to victimization by forces it claims to be unable to control.
How can the president possibly say that his administration has "been in charge"? BP has been in charge from the start -- it and its contract companies, all of them desperately trying to plug the hole in the bottom of the sea, and all with corporate interests of their own. The president has been in his office or operations center pleading with his associates and advisers to get BP to end the crisis. They claim that they are technically incompetent to give instructions to BP. That might be, but they can and must tell BP what priorities must be set, and what must be accomplished on what timescale.
BP's lawyers and lobbyists obviously have just as desperately been striving to allow BP to evade responsibility and blame it on anyone or everyone else, including incompetent or irresponsible or compromised federal regulators -- and probably on God Himself in the end, if they cannot find anyone else to push it off onto. But God would, on the evidence of the existing universe, seem a more competent engineer than any employed by BP. In addition, He is not profit-driven in His decisions.
Allow me, in the house style of the eminent metropolitan columnists read with attention and respect in
"My friends:
"The American nation has suffered a grievous blow from the catastrophe produced in the
"I have therefore today given orders that the American functions of this company be seized by the American government, as in recent months we have been forced to seize banks and corporations devastated by economic crisis, such as
"BP's American management will be placed under public authority and will be instructed to terminate this oil emergency as rapidly as possible and in disregard of whatever costs must be incurred by the company. This effort will be conducted by BP through its own unrestricted best efforts, supervised by officers of the
"In no circumstances will company, proprietary or stockholder interest be given priority over measures to terminate this emergency and to safeguard the assets or interests of
"I am instructing that all BP assets within
This is what the American people want to hear! President Obama wishes to be seen as decisive and as a leader? Here is the way to accomplish that. He wants a
Indeed, he could suitably conclude his speech by saying to his political opponents that any Republican who wishes to run for office in November as an opponent of these Obama administration crisis measures, and as a defender of
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