The Gulf Coast catastrophe and Pres. Obama’s horrific management of the crisis is bad enough.
We don’t need the princess of “drill, baby, drill” adding absurdity to the nightmare.
Palin’s support for expanded oil exploration as the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate helped turn “Drill, Baby, Drill” into a party mantra. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” she said she remains “a big supporter of domestic extraction of the resources that we are so reliant on, versus relying on foreign sources.”
… According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.
So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry’s $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.
This is a decades-long trend, the center says…
As for Obama and off-shore drilling, his policy now seems to be “wait now, drill later,” but they are moving from whining to the press about pesky questions to having Thad Allen in the briefing today with Robert Gibbs.
It’s widely known that the White House is taking it very personally and “is frustrated” that they’re getting charged with “stumbling.” Tough.
Obama ran for president and he’s the manager in chief of the Gulf Oil catastrophe. He needs to start acting like he’s in charge and illustrate that Democrats actually know what government’s purpose is.
We expect Republicans to be incompetent when in charge, because they don’t like government, want to starve it out of existence, and don’t respect its purpose. So when they attempt to lead they stumble over themselves and end up making matters worse.
Democrats are supposed to know government’s role, respect the force of what it can do and launch it into action using all means necessary when a national security crisis meets an environmental and economic one. Pres. Obama has not shown that he knows what he’s doing, which is a depressing a sight to witness, with a Democrat revealing incompetence I’ve come to expect of Republicans.
It’s true Barack Obama received more campaign funds from BP than anyone else, which I’ve written myself. His decision to allow BP to control their volcanic spill at the beginning was correct. It’s not any longer.
But hearing Sarah Palin talk about Obama’s “connection with the contributions” with big oil like Republicans and Palin herself isn’t Sister Drill is insulting.
It would be hilarious if this whole situation hadn’t long ago past the political stage into wondering what we’re paying taxes for if the federal government, especially under the auspices of a Democratic majority, can’t get its act together to save one of our most valuable assets, the Gulf Coast.
Perhaps if I put it in military terms people would get it. This is a national security issue. The economics and environmental costs will be calamitous for one of our most precious regions, already suffering, further straining our economy. We are at war against the evil oil volcano that BP has imploded off our shores. We’re at DefCon 1, people. All hands on deck.
So Sara is a big, old fashioned hypocrite – can I ask what else is new?
Just saw this:
at: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/palin-accuses-obama-of-being-in-bed-with-big-oil-video.php?ref=fpa
Two stunning things here:
1) I totally agree with her – the big O is in the pocket of big oil and the MSM doesn’t seem to notice -
2) Sara actually said it – this just shows us how outside the beltway she really is. Neither Repug or Democorp would ever say that anybody in DC is corrupted by corporate campaign money – it just isn’t done! Its a mutual dirty secret that neither side can admit to -
I think #2 is great because no one in DC is without sin here. If they start accusing each other of being Corporate cronies who knows what trash is going to get pulled into the light of day -
Taylor:
Blockquotes didn’t work again – it works in the diaries (see my post from last night) but not in the comments to your posts -
Sorry – just the sysadmin in me……..
M-
My tech guru is on holiday right now, but I’ve got a note to ask her about this, mwfolsom. Thanks for your patience.
I am absolutely done with this Administration. They are either nothing but liars, or it is such a disorganized friggin mess they have no idea who is doing what:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37309122/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
Ooops. Sorry mwfolsom. Didn’t see that you already put this over in the diary section.
Good to post links like that here too. Thanks for doing so, as it’s also linked in my post.
If we were really concerned about national security, we would leave all our oil in the ground and buy as much foreign oil as possible, while developing alternative energy sources.
When the oil starts to dry up, we tap what we have to of our own reserves while we make the switch to the new sources. No reason to add 3% more oil to the world market, except to make the oil companies a few more billions in profit.
While I fully agree that off shore oil drilling is the absolute worst thing we can do, we need to become more aggressive in our research to get us onto REAL renewable energy. I may be mis-reading you a bit here, but it seems almost like you are advocating stockpiling as much oil as we can, that simply will not do in my estimation.
I am saddened by the motor companies focusing on internal combustion as the energy source for our vehicles still, look @ the hybrid cars, and tell me what the huge deal is, sure they are more efficient with gasoline, but they still run on it. I yearn for the day that we use solar/wind/hydroelectric power for our needs. Where we improve battery cells so that we can run without the need for the internal combustion engine. Where we generate the electricity needed without causing even more harm to our planet earth, and where the decomposed and compressed bodies of ancient animals will not need to be tapped out of the earth to power our lives.
Oil was not the answer 30 years ago, it is not the answer today. And before someone says electronic engine technology is not powerful enough, anyone ever take an electronic train? I know that light rail type cars are doing quite alright.
We need to more rapidly get away from Oil as the driving force of industry, it was semi-okay when the other technologies were nonexistent, but now it’s just wrong. Synthetic oil is also not the answer. Will any of this happen? Probably not. Too much money in oil, but look @ what is happening now.
You didn’t misread my words, but you may have misunderstood my point. I was just making an argument that using foreign oil is not necessarily a national security concern since we have domestic supplies. Importing foreign oil is more of an economic concern. The real national security concern is when oil becomes unavailable at any price and if we haven’t moved to another power source before then. Of course we will NOT move to another source before the oil runs out, so it would be in our best interest to hoard our own oil to give us 4-5 years to do the Manhattan Project for energy that we should be doing right now.
I pretty much agree with everything in your post, except that I don’t MIND pumping oil out of the ground where it is done safely. I just don’t like the idea that the country will wait until the crisis hits before putting our best effort into the alternative energy sources that are out there.
But unfortunately that is precisely what I think is going to happen, given the focus on using oil more _efficiently_ instead of the focus on not using it at all.
To elaborate (cause I hit submit too early) I know there is no magic pill to remove our oil dependence overnight, but I’d really love to see some shred of evidence that we are working on it now and not just putting it off.
It sometimes seems as though every day someone feeds Sarah Palin her talking points- there is no coherence and if she had been on a REAL news show (not that lots of them actually exist) she would have been called to account for some of what she said. For a former Gov. of Alaska to talk about someone else being beholden to big oil, is pretty amusing. Also, of course, the whole “drill baby drill” thing makes her comments now seem like an SNL skit.
All that said, there is obviously a big problem with Washington DC and big oil- if there wasn’t, there wouldn’t be an oil rig gushing oil right now because the rig would have had an acoustic switch just like the BP rigs working in the oceans in/off parts of Europe. So, while she pointed out the obvious, she did so disingenuously and in a way that of course only targets one political party- and not hers.
Do we really have any hope of politicians on any side of the camp throwing down party lines and responding to this crisis? I’m sitting here at work with blogs on one monitor and another at http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html just sitting and watching as more and more oil gushes out into our oceans.
The partisanship needs to go away, this is not a question of war or of social plans this is a question of the very survival of one of our greatest natural assets. This is the kind of thing that all Americans need to come together and quit the bickering and start to plan and execute some type of action. We can’t afford this, and even though I do not expect Palin to start loving people like me, I do expect her to shut the hell up if she does not start offering solutions, the same goes for those on our side of the camp. I’m no engineer, I’m no physicist, but there has to be some means of containing that oil, but it seems like BP at the least is more concerned about still getting that oil into barrels and onto the market, and the US administration is just not acting properly here at all. We need to get BP off of this and our civil engineers on it. At the end of the day while I see this stream and think “oh god the oceans.” Someone in the UK is going “oh god the profits.”
Great post Taylor, I was think the same thing about Sarah Palin statement about Obama and being in bed with big oil…Who is she trying to fool?…Anyone with ounce of common sense knows Sarah “Drill, Baby, Drill” Palin is there best friend.
She only made the statement about big oil & Obama because she sees a way to pick at him further in public…I once suggested that Sarah Palin was obsessed with Obama…but now I think its someone in her camp that is give this giving this woman horrible advice. Sarah Palin is basically a mouth piece for every right wing talking point against Obama…No, matter how crazy the attacks against Obama may sound she still does them anyway…This lets me know that Sarah Palin will say and do anything for money.
You know, Palin is pretty adept at sensing political moments and jumping into and on them.
That she doesn’t get the irony in her statement on Obama is really something.
Taylor, don’t you mean her handlers/advisers are pretty adept at sensing political moments? It just seems like all her comments are so scripted- like when she made those hawkish remarks about Iran and Israel a while back, it was like someone spoon fed them to her and she was speaking in another language- had she been asked any real questions about it she would have been cooked.
If this is a “national security issue” why do we continue to allow our oil needs to be met by private for-profit companies? Let’s cut out the middlemen and nationalize the oil industry. Peace
Don’t let Rand Paul hear you say that!
This article is pure garbage, wasted 5 minutes of my life. Was this article submitted by a high school student?? I’m surprised it wasn’t written on the back of a Shoney’s menu with an orange crayon. This is my favorite part….
“Obama ran for president and he’s the manager in chief of the Gulf Oil catastrophe. He needs to start acting like he’s in charge and illustrate that Democrats actually know what government’s purpose is”
So what is Obama supposed to do?? station soldiers on the shore?? Start blaming people instead of letting them do the job of capping and cleaning up this mess?? Offer a competent thought provoking suggestion instead of just whining in your article. (The empty can rattles the most) The EPA, will issue the fines, the clean up crews will clean up the mess, the local governments will contact the federal government and inform them of money they will need for further clean up and business relief, they will request federal aide for beach, wet lands testing etc.
Typical dramatic American “This a National security issue” No its not, NO report that Mohammed blew up the oil rig if you attach that label to everything that happens it loses its value. It’s a crappy environmental issue, will be an economic issue for years to come. I’m worried about the Florida coast but not New Orleans. They should have never fixed the levy and let it flood and closed the place, that area was disgusting, a ghetto on the beach.
Palin is a moron “drill baby drill” thank God she doesn’t hold office.
“The Gulf Coast catastrophe and Pres. Obama’s horrific management of the crisis is bad enough”
You do realize that the oil companies pay professionals/experts in this field millions of dollars whose sole purpose in life is to prevent, deal with, clean up these messes so they don’t pay billions in fines. Do you think Obama has some guy sitting around the oval office who is an expert on this type of situation?