Obama’s Katrina Just Bit Him in His Inattention

Listening to the car radio the day before yesterday, I became aware of the problems Venice, Louisiana was facing in the aftermath of the oil rig explosion on April 20th. I tuned in partway through the NPR interview with Venice Parish’s president on the dire situation facing the shore line all along the gulf. He talked of the community’s desperate efforts to get help. The interviewer prodded and prodded him, but he refused to put the blame on the oil company, BP. As he explained patiently to this news twister, their parish had both oil workers and fishermen. Everyone was affected by this disaster.

As she prodded once more and he continued to hold fast, I turned off the radio in disgust, remembering why I find National Public Radio so loathsome. Those people don’t deliver the news, they pick the nose of the news and give you their considered results. Yes, they really are that disgusting. And that's why they call their program “All Things Considered” (or as my older son used to say, “All The Things We Care to Consider”. I believe it was he who named NPR “National Palestinian Radio”). Well, that's a government-funded news program for you.

Then, as I started to close up my computer tonight, I happened to look at posts by Gateway Pundit and Director Blue. I’d left their pages open hours earlier, but now I gave them closer attention. They were talking about the federal government’s appalling lack of action in this situation. The White House’s “non-response”. That’s putting it mildly.

Jim entitles his post Obama Takes Break from Campaigning to Visit Oil Slick Disaster:

After 12 days of campaigning against the Arizona immigration law and Wall Street bankers while pushing his next big government takeovers in energy and banking, Barack Obama finally decided to visit the oil slick disaster zone today.

Anyone remember the Dems excoriating Bush, claiming he didn’t do enough and he didn’t work fast enough on Hurricane Katrina? The headlines were endless and mean-spirited. And many of them were wrong.

Well, karma can be an unpleasant thing. Now Our Obama has met his Katrina and it’s a oil well five thousand feet down in the Gulf of Mexico, still actively spilling oil. Obama and his administration did take the time earlier to say this would put the kibosh on any plans for drilling. However, no one from Washington actually went there and as usual, the intrepid “who me?” Janet Napolitano was clueless about the federal help that might have been offered if anyone had taken the time to look.

Director Blue had a different take:
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He has an illustrated timeline dating from the oil rig explosion on April 20th until today, when our President finally moseyed on down to Louisiana to look things over.

This creation of this timeline took some doing and Doug is to be congratulated for his careful work here. The Prez was a bizzy boy. While 200,000 gallons of oil continued to pour out every day into the Gulf from five thousand feet under water, Obama was speaking on Wall Street, making a video to get out the minority vote in November (yeah, he’s worried), and — why not? — having a weekend getaway on the 25th… hunh? What oil spill?

On April 29th, there are photos of Obama and Napolitano in the White House looking at pictures of the Gulf while wearing concerned expressions. Check that one out!

Doug ends his pictorial review of the lapse of time between this disaster with this:

Perhaps if the oil breached the Louisiana levees, then caught on fire, and then turned New Orleans into a Dresden-like inferno, the President would stop campaigning for a couple of days and actually pay attention to his own, personal Katrina. Even The New York Times has noticed, decrying the President’s lackadaisical response. But I’m guessing that somehow, someway, it’s all President Bush’s fault.

An educated guess, I’d say. It’s always Bush’s fault. Obama doesn’t do Oval Office responsibility.

Back at Jim’s post, there is a picture of Obama actually getting on the bus, Gus, to get his gluteus maximus down to Louisiana — where it belonged while they were still searching for oil rig workers. In fact, why not on Earth Day, when he was instead preaching on Wall Street about the environment.

As Jim notes:

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was not aware the Defense Department had equipment for dealing with oil slicks. The White House defended their non-response today.
[my emphasis — D]

There are links there to the Times story. Great ending: they “defended their non-response”.

I’d love to hear the back story on this one. The press is not going to cooperate, so perhaps the locals can tell us what Governor Jindal had to say to Napolitano and the President.

Whether Napolitano manages to keep her job after this debacle remains to be seen. The President isn’t about to take the fall for his own inattention so he’s going to be looking around. Perhaps the two people in the room with him at the White House, looking at pictures of the Gulf with concerned expressions, are shining up their résumés even now.

It doesn’t matter. Whomever he boots for this horrible inattention, Obama has his Waterloo now. Or rather, his Katrina. If it weren’t so late, I’d do some research on what our fearless President had to say about Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina…

But I think we can guess the content of his pontifications.