Why Does BP Get A Pass?

by Steve

As Mary has noted in the Open Thread, and others have noted over the last month, British Petroleum has been allowed to manage their own catastrophe with the Obama administration seemingly on the sidelines watching. Why? There is cause for outrage here if the administration is more concerned about the media hounding than they are about actually doing something.

Ask yourself this: if the Bush administration had allowed an oil company, especially one with BP's tragic record of negligence to jerk things around while the Gulf was destroyed, and if the left knew that Halliburton had been culpable as well, we'd all be coming unglued and demanding congressional action and a special prosecutor to find out why.

Consistency demands the same here. Where are the EPA and the Interior Department? Why isn't the Coast Guard in charge, with the full backing of Eric Holder and the Department of Justice? In fact, where the f*ck is the Attorney General to put the fear of God into someone? Then again, name one consumer or environmentally-conscious major action done by the Holder DOJ.

I realize that these guys are afraid to get fully engaged because it would reveal that the federal government under both political parties was woefully complicit and unprepared for a calamity like this, by allowing oil companies to do deep water drilling for decades without oversight or being required to demonstrate they would know what to do if the worst thing happened. But Obama is in charge now, and this is his crisis of inaction. Speeches won't cut it. If we lambasted Bush for inaction, indifference, and coddling corporations, it applies to Obama now.

When does Obama care enough to make corporations mad? They're going to donate to the GOP anyway. Does he really think there's a negative in running against banks, Wall Street, and oil companies? If the Clinton cabal around him tells him so, then he's accountable for that travesty.

Barack Obama, the ooze has washed up on you.

Hat tip to Rayne at FireDogLake.com