Common Sense University

            Tomorrow marks nine weeks since the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. That is more than two months in duration and there seems to be no end in sight for this incredible disaster. Throughout this period, only one thing seemed to have been around  and that is called the blame game. Even though hindsight is easier than foresight, here is what should have happened from April 20 on forward:

            When a disaster like the explosion on the BP (British Petroleum) deepwater oilrig Horizon develops, it requires immediate attention and projection of things to come. A thorough analysis should have shown anybody with a sliver of common sense that this could develop into a major catastrophe with incredible consequences. After just a few meetings with real experts with experience in the industry and not with theoreticians from academia, it should have been clear very quickly that this could be identified as two separate issues. The first one being that it would not be easy to stop the leak a mile under the ocean floor within a few days but this could possibly last a while since remedial actions were no guaranty of sudden success. The other major issue was the identification of the potential consequences for the land areas nearby the spill location.

            Everybody knew immediately that the shorelines from Louisiana to Florida were threatened once the spilled oil would reach them. The good thing about that in comparison with a hurricane was that the States would have some time to take preventative measures before the oil approached land. Hurricanes normally do not give us more than a few days, a week at the most, to prepare for this natural disaster but there was little time to do the things required to minimize the damages. With this oil spill disaster, there were at least several weeks before the oil would reach the shores and effective preventative measures could have been taken.

            Now then let us compare this with the reality of what took place. The first thing we heard from the Obama administration was that this disaster was BP’s fault and that they would be held accountable. The Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar even announced that they were holding the boot to their (BP’s) throat and make them pay for all the damages. We have to ask the question: Was there any doubt that it was BP and not Disney World, Coca Cola or the Home Depot that was responsible for this catastrophe? Oh sure, some morons in the liberal media tried to blame this thing on former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. We wonder some times if liberals realize how idiotic their statements are? But back to the issue: It took President Barack Obama nine days before he even commented on the oil spill and he joined in the blame game. He decided to form a commission to look into the disaster and claimed that the government would do everything it would take to hold BP responsible. The three Republican Governors from Louisiana (Bobby Jindal), Mississippi (Haley Barbour) and Alabama (Bob Riley) appeared to have immediate emergency plans ready and begged the U.S. government for certain supplies and other help. Their permit requests to build sandbanks and other such things to prevent the oil from reaching the shores were stopped by review panels and some other bureaucratic roadblocks; they took their sweet time to review the requests and apparently refused most of these requests. It was more important that the paperwork was right and properly filled out for those bureaucrats before they could make decisions as to how to respond.

            One of the first actions President Obama took was to put a six-month moratorium on oil drilling of all offshore oil drilling projects including in Alaska and formed another commission to study the effects on future projects such as these. After some criticism, the President even visited the affected region for a few hours each, met with officials and talked nonsense by telling a group: “I can’t take a straw and suck up the oil!“ He gave nothing but empty lip service to citizens.

            Within days of the oil spill, foreign governments and international companies offered help by way of supply of equipment and materials but their offers were scuttled/refused by the same bureaucratic apparatus. Then the oil hit the shorelines and now the catastrophe took on in a very short time a dramatic turn for the worse. Daily pictures of oil covered pelicans, sera turtles and other birds as well as fish brought the true size of this disaster home to everybody. What did Obama do? He kept on blaming BP and assured the American people that he would make sure that BP would pay for all this, oh, and by the way, he was in charge of this major problem and in fact, his administration had been on the job from day One.

            When this nonsense was rejected by the people and his approval numbers went down, Obama gave a speech from the Oval office last week and after that even met with the CEO and Chairman of BP to ask them to put some twenty billion dollars into an escrow account so that an independent panel could pay those who were negatively effected by the oil reaching the shores. In the same speech on June 15, Obama also talked about the need to pass energy legislation linking this disaster as evidence that our dependence on oil was unsustainable.

            We here at Common Sense University firmly believe that if anybody with a right mind considers this leadership they should be pitied but otherwise ignored. Contrarily if anything, the actions by President Obama clearly show his ineptitude and incompetence when it comes to matters of such major proportion. His entire approach was lackadaisical at best and should be seen as such by all people. Obama has absolutely no skills when it comes to realistic analysis and a sense of how to approach problems of such magnitude. He also has no experience when it comes to leadership and it would be nice if even the liberal media would be honest and see it for what it is. Obama is a man who was deceitful in his run for the White House and we are all paying a huge prize for this and people in the Southern Gulf States will suffer for a long time to come.

            In conclusion, we believe that this has been so far a triple disaster: First, the oil rig exploded and nobody could have prevented it outside of those who worked the rig and decided to take shortcuts to meet deadlines, this is the sole responsibility of BP. Secondly, the U.S. Government has completely failed to prevent the disaster we are seeing now as the oil is reaching the shorelines in the Gulf States. But lastly, the third disaster is the fact that we are having a totally inexperienced and incompetent President in the White House who is simply lost as to what effective decisions to make. He did not realize that this was a crisis from Day One but instead treated in his usual fashion: Looking for whom to blame and pouncing on the culprits and arrogantly repeating that he is in charge and would fix it! This is not leadership, this is shameful and blatant ineptitude!

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