Combivir@buy.online” rel=”nofollow”>.…

It’s the typical progressive strawman argument. A conservative says “limited government” and progressives swear he or she said “no government.” I’ll give you a hint. True conservatives want the federal government to provide the services outlined in the constitution (roads, protection from invasion, etc.).

And the entire of your final paragraph could have easily explained the response to Katrina. The only differences are that Katrina was a much larger scale disaster (making it more difficult to handle), was of a nature that made it impossible to have the resources on the ground quickly, and had a President in office that you did not like.

That said, many people are in place making large amounts of money to handle such difficult situations. In both cases, it did not happen.

And keep in mind that 36 days after Katrina, the resources were in place. 36 days after the explosion, materials to contain the oil are still MIA.

The fact is that the government does not have the capability to address this. Not to say that they shouldn’t or couldn’t, but they don’t. I’ve heard a host of engineers in the news saying that there are very limited things that can be done, and most things are highly experimental. This is not to say that the government reacted well, and if in fact there were unnecessary delays, those in charge should be penalized…

You are engaging in a red herring. It is not about fixing the well on the ocean floor. It is about containing the spill.

The Administration’s response has essentially been, “Let BP handle it.” Not much different than Bush’s Katrina fiasco with the same bureaucratic nightmares (Army Corps of Engineers sitting on sand boom plans). Jindal has only received 20% of the aid requested.

“Governor Jindal said, “On May 2nd we leaned forward and requested the resources that our parishes would need under a worst-case scenario response to this oil spill. In fact, the very next day, we announced all of our coastal parish detailed protection plans and detailed that we had formally requested three million feet of absorbent boom, five million feet of hard boom and 30 ‘jack up’ barges.

“Today is May 24th and we have received a total of 815,569 feet of hard boom to date. Not even a million feet. 680,249 feet of this total has been deployed and 135,320 feet of hard boom sits and waits to be deployed. In the last 24 hours, we have received only 5,040 feet of hard boom. We need more boom, we need more resources, we need the materials we have requested to fight this oil and keep it out of our marsh and off of our coast.” http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/governor-jindal-meets-with-federal-officials-calls-response-efforts-disjointed-31719.html

This is more than three weeks since Jindal made the request and 5 weeks since the incident.

With foresight and quick response times like this, I cannot wait until the government gets hold of our healthcare…

The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. We take our whippings in stride in this country. We behave as though there is nothing we can do about it.
[snip]
This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/opinion/22herbert.html

Sarah Palin is also accusing Obama of being in bed with Big Oil. It’s surprising to see Palin and Herbert agreed on an issue.

“The oil is gushing and we’re being lied to by how much oil is gushing … and the administration has now named a commission,” Roberts said. “Now this is what you do when you really don’t have anything else to do: You name a commission,” she said. “That’s not going to stop the oil.”

link http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2010/05/sarah-palin-cokie-roberts-donna-brazile-fault-obama-administrations-response-to-oil-spill.html

I couldn’t disagree more.

Americans were dying in New Orleans. A concerned President, a real, authentic, moral man, steps up to every microphone in sight and says, again and again, “It nauseates me that we can’t get water to the Superdome. I’m going to make sure the water gets there, even if I have to drive it there myself. Then I’m going to find the people responsible for the delay, and fire them.”

It seems that Salazar is caught between two imperatives-obey the law that says he has to approve the leases, and obey the imperatives to stop all new drilling. There is bureaucratic inertia at play as well, and it sounds like firing would be called for. Like you, I don’t see that happening, either.

But Katrina was different. It was forseeable, and the warnings were ignored. (There were specials on the Discovery Channel before the storm warning that this was going to happen, for heaven’s sake.) And while it was going on, America knew what was happening-and Bush didn’t. It wasn’t being handled, and everyone could see that. Either he didn’t care, or he didn’t make it clear to everyone that he cared. I’m not sure which it is.

The difference is that there’s not much the President can actually do about a well broken on the sea floor. The Bush administration could have done many things after Katrina, but their ideological views lead them to neuter those best able to respond (prior to the hurricane)… FEMA was a well run agency under Clinton and Bush 41…

I do agree with Steve’s characterization of the Obama administration- which anyone who read his book could have told you- as not being very ideologically driven. He’s very clearly driven by practicality and an understanding of what is politically possible.

I have mixed feelings about it, I guess…