Matter of Fairness

It was never my tendency to blame US Presidents for acts beyond their control such as acts of God like hurricanes or acts of corporate negligence like oil spills. I could find no fault in the last President Bush for Hurricane Katrina nor initially in Obama for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But when the response was slow to Katrina, the responsibility shifted from Louisiana politicians who had diverted money sent from Washington to strengthen the levees for years to other purposes (including some purported to have been less than above board) and even away from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and to an administration that seemed slow to grasp the magnitude of need. So too was I loathe to blame the Obama administration for a catastrophe that they could not have prevented. But when President Obama tries to take credit for what turns out to be a failed attempted solution, "top kill"- I do start to doubt. And when White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs demands the press corps "stop asking so many questions" about the BP spill my skepticism intensifies. And the last straw for me might be when the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has the nerve to blame the last President Bush. At least with Bush's background as an oil man, he might have known more rapidly how to address the ongoing crisis or who to call to figure it out. Obama deserves no blame for the initial spill, some for the tardy response, but will gain no credit in my book for whatever it takes to eventually stem the tide of this disaster.