Obama under fire for spill response
dyn.politico.com
By Glenn Thrush and Josh Gerstein and Manu Raju
Politico
May 26, 2010
President Barack Obama is on the defensive over his presidential multitasking, for refusing to scrub his schedule of events that seem peripheral — even trivial — compared with the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
As oozing oil fouls Louisiana’s marshes, Obama has committed to maintaining the semblance of a regular schedule, adhering to his walk-and-chew-gum style of crisis management even as criticism of his administration mounts.
That includes a sit-down to talk hoops with Marv Albert, events touting the stimulus and Duke’s basketball team, a Memorial Day appearance in Illinois and a pair of fundraisers in California that roughly overlapped with a memorial service for 11 workers killed in the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon platform.
The White House is unapologetic and says the criticism is deeply unfair. Aides say Obama is focused on the oil spill, to the point of being obsessed. Having the president personally involved in every public event on the spill would be distracting and “wouldn’t move the ball forward,” said a White House official.
And despite Obama’s commitment to keep prior scheduling commitments, he’s carved out time for a day trip to the Louisiana Gulf Coast on Friday and a Q & A with the White House press corps to answer questions about the disaster — in addition to a constant stream of briefings on BP’s progress.
That hasn’t kept allies and enemies alike from questioning why Obama isn’t projecting more of a sense of urgency and outrage.
“This is one of the great lost political opportunities I’ve ever seen,” says former Clinton adviser James Carville, a Louisiana native sharply critical of the Obama administration’s response to the spill.
Obama earned high marks — and perhaps the presidency — for keeping his cool during the 2008 financial crisis, but that same determination to maintain an even keel during the Gulf disaster may be backfiring, with even allies saying he’s coming off as cold and uncharacteristically tone-deaf.
“There are times and places where his cool, technocratic mastery is a great blessing. ... But, ideology aside, what do you think [President Ronald] Reagan would have done in this situation? He’d be down there. Look at [Louisiana Gov. Bobby] Jindal. ... It is puzzling, the detachment,” said one veteran Democratic strategist, a frequent defender of Obama.
“I just cringe at the specter of the president doing a political fundraiser in San Francisco during the memorial service instead of going to the memorial service,” the person added. “He was sure there for the coal miners in West Virginia; he spoke at their funerals. That juxtaposition can’t be good.”
Republicans — smarting over criticism that President George W. Bush delegated his response to Hurricane Katrina to incompetent subordinates — are seizing on the fiddle-while-Rome-burns theme with relish.
Sean Hannity, speaking on his Fox News show, encapsulated a new GOP talking point Tuesday night when he said, “Throughout this catastrophe, let’s see, President Obama has found time to play golf, political fundraisers, state dinners.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee e-mail blasted a press release — “President Delays Gulf Coast Spill Recovery Efforts for San Francisco Fundraiser With Oil Heirs” — on the eve of Obama’s West Coast fundraisers, which netted $1.7 million.
Even without the Gulf crisis, Obama’s plate was overflowing. Obama has spent much of his time focusing on a sequence of major crises: a knife’s edge military confrontation on the Korean peninsula, continuing concerns about the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, a tricky compromise on repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and high-stakes final negotiations over the financial regulatory bill.
Obama spoke repeatedly about the Gulf during his West Coast events Tuesday and Wednesday, which included a tour of a plant that produces components of solar panels — and a pair of fundraisers for the party and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
“This situation in the Gulf is heartbreaking,” Obama declared at his first fundraisers Tuesday. “And the day that it was reported to me that this riser and the drilling situation had blown, I said to my team, ‘We’ve got to put every bit of energy, time, all the resources we’ve got, to make sure that we deal with this.’ And we’ve now got over a 1,000 people from the federal government deployed down there. We are doing everything we can to contain the damage.”
For the moment, the gripes are coming mostly from the GOP. “The president has remained disengaged,” said California Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking minority member of the House Oversight Committee and a frequent Obama critic. “For 35 days, he hasn’t used the full force of our government.”
Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino — who has expressed sympathy with Obama’s plight — sees a double standard in the media coverage of Obama and her old boss. Bush was pilloried by Democrats — including then-Sen.Obama — for his handling of Hurricane Katrina.
“I call it the battered press syndrome,” she e-mailed POLITICO. “They keep trying to win his favor, but it’s not returned.”
Environmental organizations and liberal groups, who routinely attacked Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their ties to the oil industry, have yet to show similar vigor in criticizing Obama for being too deferential to BP.
At the fundraisers Tuesday night in San Francisco — the birthplace of the environmental movement — Obama faced dozens of protesters, but only a few were there to criticize the government’s response to the spill. A video posted online by the San Francisco Chronicle shows tea party members, a Save-the-Whales contingent, a group promoting solar energy and immigration activists. Just a handful of people from a socialist group, ANSWER, carried a sign saying, “Make Big Oil Pay” and “Seize BP.”
The San Francisco events, where Obama joined Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, raised $1.7 million for Boxer and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.
A spokesman for Greenpeace said he was unaware of any oil-spill-related protest in connection with Obama’s fundraiser but that the group has protested in recent days in New Orleans and on Capitol Hill.
“We’re doing everything we can to draw the public’s attention to the fact that not enough is being done and, in fact, the president’s policies in support of offshore drilling increases the chances of another disaster like this one,” said the spokesman, Daniel Kessler. “We haven’t been shy at Greenpeace about calling out President Obama.”
Democrats, for the most part, have stuck with Obama.
“There’s going to be a concerted effort to [criticize Obama],” said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow. “It’s really not about Bush vs. Obama. To me, it’s about a philosophy that says deregulate, step back and let Wall Street do whatever they want; step back and let the oil companies control everything.”
Boxer on Wednesday defended Obama’s action, noting that his visit to the solar-panel plant highlights the need to move the nation away from fossil fuels — and the risk of such underwater catastrophes.
“They would criticize the president no matter what he did. And I guess the question is, should the president just not go anywhere until this well is capped? I mean, I think he needs to have a schedule,” Boxer said. “I think he’s going there on Friday, and he’ll go there as many times as he feels he should go there because he knows he’s dispatched 1,000 people. And I think he’s doing every single thing that he can.” |
