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Obama to do everything 'humanly possible' on oil spill

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The timing of this "accident" seems very suspicious, and Obama sending in the S.W.A.T. teams makes him look as if he has no idea of what he is doing! Will they blame it on the Tea Party Members or Al-Qaeda?

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If it stops naturally then everyone can breathe a sigh of relief and start to mop up.

If it continues to spew, then it's an exponentially-growing nightmare.

I bet the government is still hoping for the former.

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No worries. President Obama is on it.

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Bgood - But the Bush administration IS to blame for this. After all, the only reason any off-shore oil drilling is going on today is because of the Bush administration's lack of support for alternative energy.

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Obama's "humanly possible" comment is a bit of a letdown from his earlier promise that his presidency would be when the "oceans began to recede and the planet began to heal". Now he can't manage an oil slick??

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Suzu1, that oil slick is now the size of Puerto Rico. What advice do YOU have?

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Ranger_Miffy, You don't seem to understand - what could even an oil slick the size of Puerto Rico compare to controlling the rise of the oceans and healing of the Earth? The thought that this problem cannot be solved by The Chosen One is quite disheartening.

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Wow! those rigs were there even before Clinton's time. The real issues are economy (~10% unemployment), deficit and illegal immigrants. May be it is time to look at oneself in the mirror of reality and wonder where U.S.A. is going? Greek model? Euro social-justice model of uncontrollable entitlements? Future generation anyone!

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Humanly possible? I would like "presidentially" possible please.

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Why don't they just burn it off.

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Can't burn the oil off because it's storming. It won't stay lit. Even if it was to stay lit, it's not going to burn much off. And just the surface oil.

Suzu1, where'd you get this: "oceans began to recede and the planet began to heal" Is that a quote from Obama? Or your sarcasm? < :-)

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Suzu1, I know what you mean. However, Obama is a politician, not a radical. I'm holding to the thought that at least he and his administration are coping with a number of problems and making progress. Just not the dramatic progress we hoped for. Enough to drive one nuts, given the severity of the problems. I'm clinging to the idea that going slow irritates people want change now (for crying out loud) and it will give many slower types time to adjust to the new rules. All better than Bush or McCain...but that isn't really saying much anymore, is it? Anyway, best not to give the President allusions of Sainthood and Godlike qualities. He's just a savvy, intelligent, astute man. Keep the pressure on, for sure.

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I understand a significant amount of the oil is also BELOW the ocean surface. That is going to difficult to clean up!!! Impossible, perhaps. Who thinks the Gulf is now doomed and much of the Atlantic seaboard in deep, deep trouble? I'm thinking it is so.

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Well guess what Obama, you're not human, you are the President of the United States of America

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I feel extremely bad for all those involved in this massive disaster. I thought that BP would've had the solid backup plans and preparations in case of events like this. I pray that Superman will fly in and clean this mess up....

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I'd like to take a moment of silence for the 11 men that died when the rig first exploded and gave their lives so we can have oil in the first place.

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I'll take that moment of silence too.

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Sail, they did not give their lives. They died in an accident.

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It's a little late for that. The feds should have immediately taken control of the site instead of letting BP screw around and minimize the situation for a week.

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usaexpat, I would otherwise agree but in this case, all the relevant information was coming out of BP, and BP - it turns out - was feeding the relevant agencies an underestimated pile of bull.

The only organization that had any clue how bad the spill was or might get, was BP.

I was thinking that an alternative safety measure - admittedly way too late now - would be to station a government agent on every oil rig. But then the GOP would cry 'Socialist,' and 'Big Brother' and 'Government, get out of the way,' and there would just be too much angst from the Right for this to work, despite the possibility it may well be an effective option.

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Sushi - what's a government agent stationed on an oil rig going to do? Get blown up with the rest perhaps? If the owners were BP and the workers BP, some government stooge, even though on site - still could and would be kept in the dark.

But the other relevant point to that is - even if said agent had been there and called in the Feds immediately - what exactly would they have done differently to stop this? If the U.S. Government had some magical technology to stop this type of oil disaster, they would be implementing it now and the Prez would be a hero. They've got nothing. It will get capped in weeks or months and be a huge environmental disaster. A fed on board might have brought the 'swat teams' in earlier so they could have all gotten together to admit they have no clue.

And now we can blame it all on the President - which makes no sense at all. But I never thought it made sense to blame Katrina on Bush, but all of you had a go at it. 'An oil rig blew up and now unrefined oil is spewing into the ocean and we can't stop it - it's your fault Mr. President'. 'A Hurricane has flooded New Orleans which scientists predicted for many years (far longer than Bush's administration) due to the crappy levy, and a bunch of people who were too stupid to follow evac orders were dying in their own filth in New Orleans - it's your fault Mr. President'.

Our blame culture must have a scapegoat, so afraid your man is it as it's his watch.

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The question on this is, if the government had acted sooner, how much of the damage could have been averted. Could they have contained, or corralled most of the oil now washing up on the beaches of the gulf, had they acted decisively sooner? I suspect, that when it was in a confined area, while they might not have been able to stop it, they could have reduced the damage, and the impact it will have by a considerable amount.

The Government should have acted immediately to asses the damage, and act to minimize the impact on wildlife. It failed, spectacularly. I don't blame Obama, the man is only as good as his best people. He didn't even get briefed on the subject for several days after the explosion. (Yeah, someone should be fired over that little slip up.) However once briefed, he should have acted immediately. He did not, he waited for the situation to develop, for the damage to worsen. And that is why he will justifiably be criticized.

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Molenir, Let's say that Obama had acted faster. They've been laying out containment equipment ever since the platform fell. Even before that the Coast Guard was heavily involved. BP is the one who allowed this to expand to the extent that it has because they (their contractor) didn't have a shutoff valve to close off the well.

What's laughable is that we waited for a week while BP was saying we're trying to turn it off, they knew they didn't have a shut off valve and made us think (Washington and everyone else) that they might be able to shut it off. With what? A big cork?

Besides going down to the coast and grabbing a swab to start mopping up this mess, I don't know what the government could have done. But I'm sure someone can fill me in. < :-)

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Sushi: "station a government agent on every oil rig"

I've got an even better idea, Sushi - nationalize all the oil companys!

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Molenir, aday is right - with no shutoff valve, BP didn't have a chance to staunch the leak. The company simply never envisioned this type of leak (actually, now there are 3 leaks on the ocean floor.) There is very little the govt. or the coastguard can do about this - you have to admit that much.

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Molenir, I was willing to entertain criticism of Obama's reaction time before. But now it does seem that BP lied and stalled. You say Obama was briefed? Was he briefed as if BP's lies were fact? The only people you can fault for BP's lies is BP.

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MistWizard - precisely. I believe a civilized degree of trust existed between the govt. and BP. The govt. didn't send the feds storming all over the platform on day 1 - as Molenir may have wanted - because - perhaps - it knows and respects that BP is a private business. I'm certain the govt's response would have been faster if BP had said, 'We have no way to plug a leak in the x-billion gallon oil resovoir we're drilling.' BP didn't say that. In fact, they glossed over the full extent of the problem for a week. Q: What exactly was the government supposed to do, when was it supposed to do it, and was it supposed to act on the misinformation it was being fed, or the reality it didn't know??

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Molenir, since theplatform had sunk, would you have prefferred that the feds raided the offices of BP America - on day 1, 2 or 3 - to get to the bottom of the situation and find out all the facts? Could they even do that? My question to you is: how could the Obama administration have gotten a handle on the true extent of the emerging disaster without trusting at least some of the information coming out of BP?

BP, it now seems, failed to provide an accurate assessment of the problem, and there is no way the Obama administration should be hung out to dry for that.

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Incredibly ironically, Sarge, in his post above, appears to have pinpointed the solution that could have significantly increased the govt's reaction speed and greatly minimized the fallout of this disaster.

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Incredibly, Sushi, in his post above, appears to have admitted that he supports nationalizing the oil companies.

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Nice try Sarge. But even you will have to admit the response speed has been slow - a week late - because BP is a private company and wasn't straight up with the government. It seems you think BP's slow response has been a good thing, for some bizarre reason.

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Sarge, actually nationalizing the oil companies is not a completely foolish idea. Big Oil has made some of the biggest profits anywhere in recent years - hundreds of billions, in fact. A partial government stake would be more realistic, but then people like you would cry 'Socialism!' as if you actually knew what it meant.

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Sushi: "It seems you think BP's slow response has been a good thing"

How did you ever come to that conclusion?

Sushi: "nationalizing the oil companies isnot a completely foolish idea"

You mean it's only a partially foolish idea?

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Sarge, actually nationalizing the oil companies is not a completely foolish idea. Big Oil has made some of the biggest profits anywhere in recent years - hundreds of billions, in fact. A partial government stake would be more realistic, but then people like you would cry 'Socialism!' as if you actually knew what it meant.

Yes, we should definitely nationalize the oil industry, I mean because government has been so effective in fixing this mess. Oh, wait, nevermind. Late, ineffectual assistance is typical of the government. Still I wonder at this idea, that somehow if a company or industry makes big profits, it ought to be nationalized. That is the very essence of socialism. Redistribution of wealth by means of the government. Fortunately, most Americans actually oppose government theft. We allow too much of it already in form of taxes, actually nationalizing industry is something most Americans oppose. And one of the reasons I'll never buy another car made by 'Government Motors'.

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The web-based political paper Politic reports that

"BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals."

Add that to all the cash he accepted from Goldman Sachs.

He sure suckered a lot of people.

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and now terrorists have a new easy target that they know will wreak havoc

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The Yanks will see very little help from the Brits, PM Brown nor BP.

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