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The cheney task force (there is a temptation to say the cheney administration) was not under the microscope on their policy making to the extent the Obama administration is, for one thing. In a way, B/C was setting precedent. yes, there had been the Enron collapse and so on, but there was no crisis. And there was no real reason for them to issue a public document addressing the non-crisis. (Enron had collapsed, but the economy was not in free-fall the way it would be seven or eight years later.)
With the Obama/BP policy, there's a very public crisis underway and it's been underway for almost two months and there's no real end in sight. (Very different from 9/11, which was over and done with and left behind a persistent FEAR of a repeat, but there was no ongoing operative threat. The Maconda well is still spewing.) There's been very little public action on the Gulf crisis, but there has been a lot of public criticism about INACTION. Certainly, a great deal of that criticism has come from the right, who will criticize virtually anything Obama does or doesn't do. And much of that criticism is the loony version that comes from people like Jindal and Barbour who want smaller government but big handouts to themselves and their constituents while denying there's even a crisis. You can't deal with people like that on a rational basis and it's a waste of energy even to try.
But there has also been criticism from the left and much of it directed toward Obama's lack of policy-making leadership. It's been suggested, by myself and by others, that the past two months (more or less) presented an opportunity for Obama to launch an alternative-energy Apollo mission. We've been waiting for leadership in that direction and we've been more than a little disappointed.
I wasn't able to watch or listen to the speech last night, so I posed some questions about what was in it. These were honest questions, because for all my own personal criticism of some of Obama's policies, I still consider him to be a far far far better choice (apologies, Mr. Carton) than McCain/Stupid. I mean, that's not even open to debate.
And I have suggested in the past that putting BP profits into escrow would be one way of making sure there's compensation for the victims AND keeping BP as an operating corporation alive rather than a bankrupt welcher like Thomas Kinkade.
The linked document was posted at 12:08 Arizona time today by ProSense, a DUer with whom I have had my share of disagreements. After reading the post, after reading through the document, after checking out the link, I posted my response at I believe 12:27 Arizona time.
TWO HOURS LATER the same information was posted (with multiple other postings in between) in this thread, and the response seemed to be that wow, look at that, Obama gives a speech on Tuesday night, meets with BP on Wednesday morning, and BANG! the agreement is handed out to the press within minutes, as if that's all it took and Obama was somehow a miracle worker for having done it so quickly.
Now, remember that this high fiving, so to speak, is coming from a lot of the same people who have been offering excuses for his previous, ahem, failures, and blaming all his shortcomings on congress and boooosh and everyone under the sun but Barack Obama himself. All of a sudden Obama is the miracle worker these people insisted he wasn't!!! Wow! Presto changeo!
My point, therefore, is that this was probably NOT some magically produced document whipped out in a morning meeting -- much more likely, given Obama's much more deliberative nature, it's been worked out over days or weeks or months. If there haven't been meetings directly between Obama and Svanberg/Hayward/et al then there have undoubtedly been meetings between lower level officials such as Salazar. Feinberg had to be brought on board somewhere along the way, and I'm sure that wasn't accomplished with a quick spur of the moment phone call in the middle of the meeting. Obama didn't put this in front of Tony Hayward and say "Sign, or else." Somewhere along the lines there have been negotiations.
If YOUR point is merely that wow, Obama is actually putting information out there for the public in contrast to bush/cheney's secrecy, okay, fine. But if it's that Obama worked a miracle by putting this all together since last night, um, I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that assumption.
Tansy Gold
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