As our country struggles to climb out of the economic ditch that GOP economic policies put us in, the GOP still refuses to have any constructive role in finding solutions. In fact they are sticking with the playbook. They have been hoping for Obama to fail and have been doing everything in their power to make sure it happens. Fortunately, they don't have the votes. That's why healthcare reform passed and pretty soon Wall Street will be reformed as well. But the beat goes on for the GOP.
Last week an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico exploded leading to an oil spill that may be the worst in our history. And the first response by the irrational opposition was to blame the Obama administration. Many were starting to call it Obama's Katrina. Listen, I get it that the GOP still hasn't recovered from November of '08. And I understand that they want to erase the immense failure called the Bush administration and the GOP congress that stood by and let it happen, but fortunately, other than those who drink the Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh Kool-Aid, no one else is buying it.
With Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration had at least two days warning before it hit. With the oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico there was no warning. Hurricane Katrina led to the deaths of at least 1836 Americans. The oil platform explosion may have caused 11 deaths. The Bush administration's response to Katrina was incompetent at best. With the oil platform, the Obama administration let the owners of the privately owned platform assess the damage before they moved in with more, so-called by the GOP, government interference. To compare a natural disaster like Katrina, that almost destroyed an entire city; to a manmade disaster such as the oil platform explosion just serves to show how ridiculous the GOP has become and how truly desperate they are to score political points rather than actually doing something productive.
Now the pro-big oil anti-regulation GOP is criticizing President Obama for not getting involved in an incident that occurred on private property. Property owned by the company British Petroleum, one of many private oil companies that spend millions each year lobbying against regulations and safe guards that could have prevented this ecological disaster. I guess the call for government involvement in this disaster by the GOP is an admission that the free market is not the answer to all our problems because as far as I can tell, the free market isn't out there cleaning up the oil spill.
Hey, perhaps we should loosen up regulations and allow more oil platforms to be built. And let's allow the big oil companies to underestimate the potential for future ecological disasters. Who needs clean water and beaches? Who cares if we continue to ruin the only planet we have, the very same planet that our creator placed in our trust? So what if the livelihood of Gulf coast fishermen and businesses dependent on tourists are put in peril. All that matters is that we feed our addiction to petroleum.
