Best Take On The Gulf Oil Disaster And Other Thoughts On The Subject

Today, Larry Kudlow offers what I think is the best analysis on the ongoing Gulf Oil Disaster.
To sum it all up it is the following.
BP (British Petroleum), congress and the White House all get to share the blame. And all can do better to get on the road to solving the problem.
Lets take congress first.
All the bellyaching is about congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) and his "apology" to BP for the "shakedown" in the Dear Leader, President Obama, forcing BP to give the federal government $20,000,000,000 to help in all efforts to clean up the disaster. And to compensate those that are directly affected by the disaster.
The real question is why the hell is congress having such hearings now as the disaster is growing?
Does any one really think that the hearings this past Thursday were worthwhile? Did congress learn anything new?
No and no.
Yet all these congressmen were there, beating up the incompetent BP CEO (now former CEO),
Tony Hayward. As Mr. Kudlow pointed out for one thing, Mr. Hayward was more than sufficiently laywered-up. And, he just was playing possum with the congressmen. Thus, not one thing resulted in the hearing. Except that when Mr. Barton spoke the truth, he became the story.
Two asides before moving on.
First, Mr. Barton should not have apologized for anything. What he should have done is simply point out that what the Dear Leader, President Obama, did was indeed a shakedown. As Mr. Kudlow pointed out, there are no laws that give the president authority to do such a thing.
Second, since this really was a Democrat party production, the Republicans should have simply not participated in the show-trial. It did no good. Except it gave the Republican members of the committee a chance to see who could be more anti-BP. They or the Democrats.
And while the show trial went on, why is congress not performing real hearings and oversight on the Minerals Management Service? That may be a real role that congress can play in finding out what went wrong and what can be done to prevent such a disaster from happening in the future. But no, it is much more important for congressmen to puff themselves up against the eeevvviiilll Tony Hayward.
Also, why is the Jones Act not being suspended? After all, there is a precedent for this in the recent past.
Former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff suspended the Act in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
In reality, the Jones Act is a piece of legislation that is protectionist at the core. And needs to be suspended now so that ships from other oil companies and supplies can help in the effort to stem the flow of oil.
A really excellent point from Mr. Kudlow is that the Dear Leader, President Obama, could have used the Oval Office speech this past Tuesday to announce a task force of people from other oil companies and people that have experience in these kind of disasters.
And that leads to leadership, or lack thereof from the Dear Leader, President Obama.
It is not enough for the Dear Leader, President Obama, to travel four times to the gulf region. We get it. He feels their pain.
But what is needed is for the Dear Leader, President Obama, to show leadership. Suspend the Jones Act. Get the best and the brightest from yes, the dreaded oil industry, to get together and come up with a real plan to stop this disaster.
Of course the Dear Leader, President Obama, used his speech to tout the fallacy of a "green" economy and that this is a reason to pass the Crap and Tax legislation. And of course the shakedown on BP to put $20,000,000,000 in "escrow" to help all efforts to clean up the disaster and compensate those that should be directly effected by the disaster.
Another aside.
I quibble with the Wikipedia link implying that Crap and Tax is market driven. If there is a government authority over it, it is not market driven.
But that is beside the point.
The Dear Leader, President Obama, needs to step up to the plate. No, this is not all his fault. But the Dear Leader, President Obama, has not manned-up and done what needs to be done now. In the short term. The rest can and should wait.
And what about BP?
Well, it is becoming obvious that they more than likely cut corners in the building of this oil rig out in deep waters in the Gulf Of Mexico.
And according to Ed Morrisey over at Hotair.com, it appears that this disaster was in the making as early as February of this year.
And BP was one oil company that has touted that it had been focusing on the politically correct "green" economy. In fact, before the Gulf Oil Disaster, the same eeevvviiilll Tony Hayward was going to get together with the Dear Leader, President Obama, in promoting the Crap and Tax legislation.
Ironic, isn't it?
Now, BP is the vilian.
Well, they have been a bad company for a long time now. But they tried to get in bed with those that, essentially, would want to put them out of business. And a lot of good it has done.
The real priority for all involved is to stop the blowout from getting worse. To allow every way possible to prevent oil from reaching shorelines all along the Gulf.
There will be plenty of time to play the blame game. But, not now.
Larry Kudlow hit the nail on the head with this piece.