Dick Morris paints us a picture of the sort of ineptitude on display by the federal government as it does its best to turn the Gulf oil crisis into a tale straight out of a Franz Kafka novel. I doubt that even the greatest satirist in the history of western literature could have constructed a parody to match what the feds are doing in real life:
According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan - early on - to erect huge booms off shore to shield the approximately 200 miles of their state's coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms - some weighing tons and seven meters high - to guard their coast.
[Unfortunately, two days after James Carville complained about the lack of effort to stop the oil from spilling into Louisiana marshes the Coast Guard moved those booms to protect the Louisiana coast.]
So, Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.
But...the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.
So, Alabama - ever resourceful - decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person scooping up oil that had washed ashore.
But ... OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Agency) refused to allow them to work more than twenty minutes out of every hour and required an hour long break after forty minutes of work so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.
[E]very agency - each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda - was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries, and recreational facilities.
Where was the president? Why did he not intervene in these and countless other bureaucratic controversies to force a focus on the oil, not on the turtles and other incidental concerns?
Good questions. They're questions that Mr. Obama needs to be forced by the media to answer. Until he does he simply looks uncaring, disengaged, and incompetent. What's worse for the Democrats in November, it won't be long before bumper stickers start appearing referring to the president as President Obungler.
BTW, these are the same people who are trying to lead us out of the economic doldrums and who have recently arrogated to themselves the power to manage your health care. That should make you feel good.
RLC
