Oil Spill? Blame Bush
[Guest post by DRJ]
Today on Imus in the Morning, Senator Chris Dodd blamed President Bush for the BP oil spill:
Here is a portion of the transcript:
DODD: How many of these wells, uh, rigs out there don’t have the kind of protection that would have stopped, uh, this, uh, gushing to occur. I’m just sort of stunned that we’re … just overwhelmed by this. This is beyond a disaster of an oil spill. It’s a … Bob Herbert, I think, wrote a piece in the New York Times and said this is really just a failure of a system to accommodate this kind of a disaster. So I’m literally overwhelmed by it, as most Americans are, and find it stunning. The economies of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and possibly Texas — the coastline — are going to be devastated by this for years to come.
IMUS: Well, it’s specifically a failure of leadership of the President, Obama, and the Administration, wouldn’t you agree?
DODD: Well, you know, they come into office a year ago with all of this. And so, after the last eight years …
IMUS: Come on.
DODD: It was ‘drill, drill, drill.’ I think you were quoting ‘Drill, drill, drill’ a few months ago, weren’t you, with Sarah Palin, the two of you?
IMUS: No. I wasn’t saying … and don’t try to lump me with Sarah Palin. And don’t use that lame excuse with me about the Bush administration. Have you lost your mind?
DODD: No, not at all.
IMUS: The President has been in office for a year-and-a-half, and they’ve been dragging their feet, and even people like James Carville said that his behavior has been, at the very best, lackadaisical and naive. And you’re still going to try to blame Bush?
DODD: Calm down, now. [Crosstalk.]
IMUS: Come on, you’ve got to do better than that, Senator.
DODD: Well, … lookit, it’s new and this goes out over a long period of time and to lay it at Obama’s doorstep in light of years and years of regulatory permissiveness when it comes to these kinds of operations occurring. It didn’t occur in the last year-and-a-half. You can’t lay this at Obama’s doorstep. [Crosstalk.]
IMUS: I’m laying the blame for the response to this BP oil spill disaster at the feet of the present Administration. He’s in office. He’s the President. Who’s responsible?
DODD: Well, all right, he’s certainly trying to do something but I’ve yet to hear anyone come up with the answer “What do you do about it?” Obviously they never should have been given permission to have a rig down there without the kind of a cap or whatever you call it that closes off these lines when a disaster like this occurs. Now that goes back years. That rig wasn’t built in the last year-and-a-half. That rig was built years ago. Who gave them the permission to put that kind of a mile under the water and then thousands of feet beyond that, and allow them to do that without having any emergency protection should there be a disaster? That occurred, what, 10 years ago, 20 years ago.
IMUS: I understand that but when the President took office, he knew, and particularly when he authorized this new offshore drilling off the coast of Virginia or wherever the hell it is, he knew that all of these permits and all of these stipulations were in place and he could have changed that, couldn’t he?
Dodd’s response was that carbon fuels aren’t the answer and we need to “shift gears” to other forms of energy.
— DRJ
Shorter Dodd: “Heckuva job, Barry!”
aunursa (031d58) — 5/25/2010 @ 7:27 pmDODD:
For a moment there, I could’ve sworn he was talking about the financial industry…
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 5/25/2010 @ 7:33 pmClown defending a clown. Hilarious that Imus after all of his Bush bashing isn’t buying the Obama admin’s “All Bush All the time” strategy.
SPQR (26be8b) — 5/25/2010 @ 7:51 pmWhy would Dodd even comment on this when it is obvious he doesn’t know the first thing about how it even happened?
And the worse part is there is nothing we can do about the Dodds of the world.
BradnSA (980254) — 5/25/2010 @ 7:53 pmIt’s not the blame that matters to people right now. It’s stopping the gusher and managing the cleanup. David Gergen is not impressed with the administration. Neither am I.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/24/gergen.oil.spill.leadership/
elissa (f72150) — 5/25/2010 @ 8:00 pm“…it was his administration which granted a ‘categorical exclusion’ from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), approving the Deepwater Horizon exploration project on April 6, 2009. Yes. That’s right. April 6, 2009. That’s during his tenure.”
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/05/25/obamas-shame.php
RB (bed771) — 5/25/2010 @ 8:02 pmhttp://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/05/25/obamas-shame.php
“it was his administration which granted a ‘categorical exclusion’ from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), approving the Deepwater Horizon exploration project on April 6, 2009. Yes. That’s right. April 6, 2009. That’s during his tenure. His administration let BP skirt the rules, allowing them to drill this well without the proper responsible governmental oversight.”
RB (bed771) — 5/25/2010 @ 8:04 pmIn the ‘Things that make you go Hmmmm’ category, we have a tie in with BP and the last big U.S. waters oil spill — Exxon Valdez.
Also Hot Air has pointed out who BP contributed the most to over the last twenty years.(3 guesses who.)
Media Matters disagrees. (hahahahahha snort. Of course they do!)
jakee308 (aec1b8) — 5/25/2010 @ 8:44 pmI knew POTUS was a cynical buffoon but it looks like his enablers have become infected.
Nice to see a clown like Imus hold the Senator to task for clearly stupid comments.
HeavenSent (a9126d) — 5/25/2010 @ 9:24 pmFascinating Exxon Valdez article, jakee308.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/25/2010 @ 9:38 pmDODD: Well, … lookit, it’s new and this goes out over a long period of time and to lay it at
Obama’sBush’s doorstep in light of years and years ofregulatory permissivenessreluctance to deal with terrorism when it comes to these kinds of operations occurring. It didn’t occur in the last year-and-a-half. You can’t lay this atObama’sBush’s doorstep.There, fixed it.
Actually, from what I understand, the feds are supposed to have available some type of equipment to deal with this since the late 90’s. It sounds like some professional bureaucrat dropped the ball long abo and it never was picked up. ???
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 5/25/2010 @ 9:55 pmI’m sick to death of this “other forms of energy” crap. If those “other forms” were worth more than spit in a bucket we would have had them working for us years ago. Dodd and Robert Redford can talk all they want about “alternative energy”. It hasn’t happened and won’t happen for the foreseeable future. The “drill anywhere but here” crowd doesn’t like it, but that’s the way it is.
navyvet (206534) — 5/25/2010 @ 10:00 pmExactly so, navyvet.
Most folks don’t understand physics (I’m no Enrico Fermi myself) but there is a simple problem of it being difficult to create enough energy in usable form for our modern day civilization.
Here’s someone who’s put things in perspective about alternative energy sources (other than petroleum )very simply and without a lot of techy talk.
jakee308 (aec1b8) — 5/25/2010 @ 10:13 pmAny discussion of this leak that doesn’t include the phrase “blowout preventer” is a technically uninformed one. That includes 99% of the political discussions I’ve heard about it, from both right and left.
Beldar (3c8f3f) — 5/25/2010 @ 11:35 pmany chance we can rig a “blowout preventer” on DC, or was there already one and it failed?
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 5/25/2010 @ 11:43 pmNotice how Dodd started shaking his head “no” before the first question was even asked!
“Drill, baby, drill”? How about “Deny, baby, deny”!
Icy Texan (380c78) — 5/26/2010 @ 12:33 am#14 redc1c4:
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 5/26/2010 @ 4:53 amThe reason carbon fuels are today’s answer is because of their relative cost and convenience compared to alternatives.
How does Chris Dodd forget that?
Michael Ejercito (249c90) — 5/26/2010 @ 5:55 pmDodd claims this project was approved ten or twenty years ago! Drilling started in Feburuary of this year and the permit was signed by the Obama administration despite concerns expressed by other US agencies.
Pat Moffitt (9d4d0f) — 5/26/2010 @ 8:51 pmThis guy can’t leave soon enough.