Then there was the oil spill that became the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. On April 20, an explosion killed eleven people on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. From there, things just seemed to get worse, if not more convoluted, in a bureaucratic (and now dead) swampland. Another explosion two days later took the rig to the bottom of the gulf; an investigation commenced on April 27; then a relief well was begun; Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar promised to restructure the Minerals Management Service that has apparently been corrupt and enabling negligent safety measures for years; two attempts to stop the leak failed; the smallest of the holes was plugged; the FDA approved and then reneged approval of an oil-cleansing chemical; a third attempt to plug the hole using dense mud was initiated, and we are presently waiting on the results that "look promising" after approximately 65.6 miles of Louisiana shoreline have already been impacted by oil.
Through all of that, it wasn’t until this week that people really began looking for someone to blame. For a month, it was enough that BP (formerly British Petroleum before a KFC-esque name contraction) was going to pay for all of the cleanup – a promise that remains after President Barack Obama’s news conference this morning. (Full transcription here.) However, now more and more, including traditionally leftist organizations like NPR and CNN, are raising the question, "Is this Obama’s Katrina?"
The question itself, with its implications, confused me the first time I heard Neal Conan of NPR pose it two days ago. Yesterday, Anderson Cooper, with raised eyebrow all a-gray, inquired the same. And this morning, Karl Rove answered in the Wall Street Journal with a yes as thick as the oil spewing from the well his friend’s administration approved.
"Could this be Mr. Obama's Katrina? It could be even worse," writes Rove. "The federal response to Katrina was governed by the 1988 Stafford Act, which says that in natural disasters on-shore states are in charge, not Washington… But BP's well was drilled in federal waters. Washington, not Louisiana, is in charge. This is Mr. Obama's responsibility."
The question and its implications are, after reading Rove’s most recent Katrina excuse, now beginning to frighten me. "Is this Obama’s Katrina?" inherently indicates that a) the BP oil spill cleanup is the federal government’s responsibility, b) the lack of regulation of the offshore oil drilling that was practiced by the Bush administration should have been restructured by the Obama administration, and c) the reaction of the federal government to Hurricane Katrina was insufficient.
Let’s begin by all agreeing that the cleanup should at least be overseen by the federal government. Well, that’s happening.
Now, let’s accept that we cannot go back in time and change the Bush administration’s policy on off-shore drilling, nor can we go back in time and beg the Obama administration to concentrate on deep-sea drilling safety measures instead of the war in Afghanistan or healthcare or getting the Olympics to Chicago.
Finally, in his answer, Rove finds the loophole he needs to make Katrina a state issue and the oil spill a federal issue (even though, again by implication, the phrase Obama's Katrina says federal disaster). Rove insinuates either that the federal government had no responsibility in reacting after Katrina (if so, what is the point of Federal Emergency Management Agency, and why was their involvement necessary), or that helping people off of roofs is commensurate to stopping a volatile eruption 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rove is admitting that Katrina was devastating and the reaction was egregious; he’s simply denying federal culpability, and that’s a happy place to be.
As Rove answers yes, this is Obama’s Katrina, he does so with a tacit slight-of-hand. He is not comparing Obama’s Katrina to Bush’s Katrina; in Rove’s mind there is no Bush’s Katrina.
But there was a Bush’s Katrina and it had only very little to do with a hurricane. Bush’s Katrina was the political fallout based on the public’s disgust with the administrations lack of response – but not just that, because Bush’s Katrina didn’t happen in a vacuum – it was the federal negligence (and continued denial of culpability) piled on to off every other incompetent decision made by the office of the President between 2001 and 2005. That is what incited the outrage that became Bush’s Katrina.
"Is this Obama’s Katrina?" suggests, through some absurd logic that this could be Obama’s Katrina as Bush's Katrina was Bush's Katrina. Not nearly enough incompetence has been displayed by Barack Obama or his team to make that possible. Regardless, it’s now apparent that we voted poorly; this disaster never would have happened if Sarah "Heartbeat Away" Palin were President. Drill. Baby. Drill.
