During the election campaign, the President famously said that he would meet with our enemies. He'd talk to anyone. Since the election, he has proved that he will bow to anyone.
But he has his limits. He apparently has not spoken to BP CEO Tony Hayward. You know, they guy who controls technology that the federal government does not have and whose neck our boot is supposed to be on while we kick his ass?
Of course, I don't think that Tony Hayward and Barack Obama would hop on a boat and git 'er done. It is the particular conceit of guys like this to suggest that they can do things like that (or at least make them happen). But a few well placed words from the most powerful man on earth at the right time (it's really too late now)might have helped - both practically and politically. It may have concentrated the mind much sooner than events did.
3 comments:
You don't seriously believe that President Obama is the only recent President who could have gotten better results and/or avoided catastrophe had he only engaged in a little serious planning instead of relying on tough-sounding rhetoric, are you?
You're coming across as more and more of a partisan hack all the time.
But he has his limits. He apparently has not spoken to BP CEO Tony Hayward. You know, they guy who controls technology that the federal government does not have and whose neck our boot is supposed to be on while we kick his ass?
Is it your contention that Tony Hayward has "technology" that could control or stop the spill, which he is not employing because he has not met personally with the President? Perhaps a more explicit statement of what you think is wrong with this non-meeting situation would help clarify the point of your post.
One supposes that it's barely -- barely! -- conceivable that meeting with hostile foreign heads of state (not "anyone", but hey, who am I to spoil a cut'n'paste spin point?) under some circumstances might accomplish something that meeting Tony Hayward under these circumstances would not.
Now the President has met with Tony Hayward and has gotten BP to agree to a $20 billion compensation fund, to be administered by Ken Feinberg, who's got more experience with that sort of thing than anyone else on the planet. The fund will start paying claims immediately, so BP's victims won't have to wait decades the way victims of the Exxon Valdez disaster did.
The meeting didn't solve the technical issues of capping the well. As far as what such a meeting could accomplish, though, it seems to have done pretty well.
Seems to me Obama did pretty good on this meeting with Hayward thing.
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