Looking for a miracle cure in the Gulf

Barack is up to his ankles in oil.

The right-wing critics of the president are doing their best to mire Obama into the oily Gulf of Mexico waters although they know they don’t want to go too far because of their mantra: “Drill baby drill.” The right isn’t right by themselves in the criticism by no means. It is hard not to get frustrated as the oil continues to flow.

But if someone should really get the blame for the bungled response by BP to the cleanup from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster perhaps it should be Exxon Valdez captain Joe Hazelwood, or perhaps George H.W. Bush who signed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 into law.

The law — in response to the catastrophic 1989 Alaska oil spill — restricts federal action in cleanup of such disasters to playing second-fiddle to the company responsible, which in this case of course is, BP. That is like letting the fox fix up the hen house.

For the time being the White House through its point man and Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Thad Allen, insists BP is doing all that it can. This is despite the fact that too many cooks can spoil the broth and too many federal agency heads can makes matter worse by not singing in the same tune as the White House. However, one could almost bet that in some point in time the Barackistration will seriously intervene unless BP comes up with a miracle cure.

Allen said today that the government was making up its position in response to the cleanup by BP on the fly. And one would think a White House filled with lawyers, including constitutional lawyers, will find a way to get that old Executive Order form out from the president’s desk drawer, dust it off and start using it. First, though, they have to figure out how to stop the damn oil.

If they could just stop the oil, the government, or BP, or the Coast Guard, or some lawyers or some ne’er-do-wells with a substance made from a chaw of Redman, and a coke bottle full of urine, all’s well that could end the oil well. Just shoot me.