Jules Witcover

When the American people elected Barack Obama president in 2008, we never promised him a rose garden. But neither did he expect that Wall Street and Big Oil would kidnap his grandiose plans to change Washington.

With the president still waging the two wars in the Middle East, his pre-election agenda of change at home has also been sidetracked by the nation's economic morass, and now by the despoiling of the Gulf Coast by a huge offshore oil spill running rampant.

The latest man-made disaster is beginning to take on the dimensions of political damage to him that the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina imposed on former President George W. Bush, haunting his presidency through its last days.

In the latest CNN/Opinion Research poll, 51 percent of Americans surveyed say they are opposed to Obama's handling of the crisis. According to the poll, 76 percent place more blame on British Petroleum, owner of the offshore rig that exploded more than an month ago, causing the massive spill now imperiling the Gulf Coast and its expansive fishing and tourist industries.

In 2006, Bush's seemingly casual response to Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, captured by his infamous tardy flyover in Air Force One, branded him as a hands-off overseer. His notorious "Heckuva job, Brownie" commendation of his hapless chief emergency response subordinate became a metaphor for his own supervision.

When the offshore explosion and oil spill occurred, Obama sought to avoid similar public criticism by immediately demanding that the prime culprit, BP, cap the leaking drilling operation and take full responsibility for all the damage done. So far, so good -- at the outset.

But Obama in doing so appeared to put more emphasis on holding BP accountable for paying for the terrible mess created and for restitution to its economic victims, than on the peril to a great natural as well as economic resource that is the Gulf of Mexico coast running from Texas to Florida.

The Obama administration has devoted considerable time, energy and attention to the crisis, with Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and the top Coast Guard officer and federal environmental officials also heavily engaged. Yet there is a widespread impression that the vast private oil company remains in charge, despite administration insistence otherwise.

Salazar on Sunday indicated a commitment to assert federal control if the impasse dragged on much longer, but also a belief that BP's experience, equipment and expertise in damage control remained the best bet for a solution. "If we find that they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing," he said, "we'll just push them out of the way appropriately and move forward to make sue that everything is being done to protect the people of the Gulf Coast (and) the ecological value of the Gulf Coast..."

The White House also brought in Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard., to a briefing with presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs, but Allen indicated reservations about taking over from BP. "Well, to push BP out of the way," he said, "would raise a question, to replace them with what?"

Meanwhile, the heat rises on Obama. On the floor of the House Monday, Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana called him "the finger-pointer-in-chief'" who was "ceding power to BP" instead of taking responsibility and action himself.

Also, the New York Times reported a row between the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, and BP operatives over the excessive use of oil dispersants whose toxicity posed a threat to marine life in the Gulf.

Strong administration supporters such as former Bill Clinton political aides Donna Brazile and James Carville have voiced criticisms of Obama's personal engagement in the oil-spill crisis. Brazile on Sunday's ABC News talk show said the president was not being "tough enough" on BP, and Carville, a native Louisianan, called his approach "lackadaisical."

Another highly publicized presidential visit to the Gulf Coast, such as the one Obama made to a Coast Guard Station in Venice, La., three weeks ago, would demonstrate his personal engagement more than all the assurances from the White House that he has his hand firmly on the tiller.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

What Is Happening to News: The Information Explosion and the Crisis in Journalism

The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics

Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks

The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House

 

 

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Obama's BP Gulf Oil Spill Nightmare