Morning Must Reads -- Maybe BP should hire Hamas' PR firm
By: Chris Stirewalt
Political Editor
06/01/10 9:21 AM EDT
Max Boot – Israel's Gaza Flotilla Fiasco
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Canada as part of a North American tour, got waved off from a White House visit and instead went home to face the condemnation of the Muslim and European communities, plus lots of heaving bosoms at the U.N. for the botched commando raid on a flotilla of ships looking to run his country’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians and led by terrorist-friendly, rocket launching Hamas.
The Israelis point out that the blockade, intended to keep weapons out of the hands of Hamas, is legal and that killing nine or 10 of the crew members and passengers of the flotilla was justifiable (and provide video evidence of an angry mob beating the commandos with pipes and clubs).
The argument and evidence are unlikely to placate the mobs outside Israeli diplomatic posts around the world or calm President Obama, who was already uncomfortable with the Gaza blockade and eager to show the Muslim world that he would show less favoritism to Israel. Obama told Netanyahu that he wanted to “get the facts” about the raid. To save face, Obama will have to put U.S.-Israeli relations back on frosty terms.
Now, Israel has the problem of what to with more than 600 of pro-Palestinian “activists” now in custody who refuse to be repatriated and how to repel the next flotilla, currently forming in Cyprus.
Boot’s excellent analysis asks what seems to be an obvious question: Wasn’t there a better way?
He suggests sabotaging the vessels or allowing the flotilla to land, impounding its contents and disabling the vessels then.
“Israeli officials are right to say the operation was justified and that the blood was on the hands of the pro-Hamas activists. Right, but irrelevant.
As it does too often, Israel took a narrow military operational approach to what is a broader strategic problem.
Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups are conducting a skillful "information war" that is making Israel a pariah state in the international community. Israel, like the United States and other democratic nations, is at a severe disadvantage trying to combat a ruthless foe willing to sacrifice its own people to score propaganda points.”
Wall Street Journal -- White House Aims to Crack the Whip
The White House talking point for today and the foreseeable future is all about getting tough on BP and creating some more distance between the president and the company.
With hopes for a short-term solution to the leak now dashed and everyone settling in for a long, oily summer on the Gulf, the Obama administration has less reason to worry about a hostile relationship with BP. If the relief wells will not be done until August, there are no heroics necessary and lots of political calculations to be made.
After more than a month of spillage, the president is eager to be seen as in charge. It was his secretary of Energy who ordered the top kill shut down, his climate czar who disclosed a higher flow rate, his Coast Guard commander who will now be doing solo daily briefings. There is even talk about canceling BP’s $2.2 billion in government fuel contracts.
But the point of the Obama spear will be Attorney General Eric Holder, who is heading down to the Gulf today to survey the damage, meet with state attorneys general and huddle with federal prosecutors in the region about the possibility of bringing criminal charges against BP, or at least a raft of punitive civil litigation.
One of the challenges for the administration is that local leaders, like Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser (an elk rancher (!) who calls his white shrimp boots “Cajun Reeboks” are hogging the spotlight and hammering the administration for slow responses and bureaucratic red tape.
The White House is pretty clearly in political panic mode now. Having failed to react in a timely fashion, Team Obama will belatedly overreact.
Writers Neil King and Stephen Power explain:
“BP's rivals are also suffering from the backlash. The Interior Department Sunday issued a directive to all oil and gas companies operating on the outer continental shelf notifying them of new requirements under a six-month deepwater drilling moratorium.
Industry representatives said they were surprised to find that the directive requires a six-month timeout even for those drilling operations that are already underway. Ongoing production platforms wouldn't be affected.
Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, said the restrictions were overly broad and would cause energy companies to shift rigs —and thousands of jobs—abroad.
‘We're absolutely stunned by what we consider to be an unnecessary and draconian reaction,’ Mr. Hunt said.”
Wall Street Journal -- BP Revised Permits Before Blast
The Wall Street Journal continues to provide the best in-depth reporting on the Deepwater Horizon debacle, explaining today that BP had sought and obtained three modifications to its drilling permits within a 24-hour period a week before the deadly explosion.
The rare flurry of permit requests and approvals (one coming in less than five minutes) centered on the question of whether BP could save a week (and $7 million) by running one pipe into the well instead of the double-layered pipe.
It backs up the testimony from BP contractors who said that the drilling plan for the project was in constant flux and that company had grown frustrated with delays. It also demonstrates that “new sheriff” Ken Salazar hadn’t moseyed over to the permit approval process in his agency.
Writers Russell Gold, Ben Casselman and Maurice Tamman explain:
“BP had hoped to get a 9 7/8-inch pipe—big enough to handle a lot of oil and gas—into the reservoir. But for the final section, the largest pipe they could fit was a 7-inch pipe.
The company had to decide whether to use a single piece of pipe that reached all the way from the sea floor down to the oil reservoir, or use two pipes, one inside the other.
The two-pipe method was the safer option, according to many industry experts, because it would have provided an extra layer of protection against gas traveling up the outside of the well to the surface. Gene Beck, a longtime industry engineer and a professor at Texas A&M University, said the two-pipe method is ‘more or less the gold standard,’ especially for high-pressure wells such as the one BP was drilling.”
The Hill -- Ranking member on Judiciary considering options to probe Sestak offer details
The White House is waiting and hoping to see if the deployment of Bill Clinton is sufficient to let the whole Sestak affair finally blow away.
No one can accuse the White House of excessive delicacy in the matter. Employing the Democrat most famous for dissembling in recent history in a pre-holiday weekend turkey drop hardly counts as a sly media move.
As Michael Kinsley wrote, the Obama White House has enshrined "discussed alternative paths to service" as a euphemism for attempted bribery the same way Mark Sanford make “hiking the Appalachian Trail” a euphemism for hanky panky.
The story sounds implausible. Why would the Big He offer Sestak a flea bite, unpaid job on a commission on which Sestak was not eligible to serve as an inducement to pass on a potential Senate seat?
But, as Examiner colleague Byron York explains, the administration knows that because Democrats control both houses of Congress and the Justice Department there is a good chance that the new stonewall will hold.
As writer Bridget Johnson explains, Republicans, who are already pressing FBI boss Robert Muller for a full inquiry, will have to decide how far they want to push on an intrigue that becomes more tantalizing but harder to grasp because of Clinton’s involvement.
‘We will never know if all we do is rely upon what the White House tells us,’ [Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas] said, adding that he was ‘not exactly holding my breath for the Judiciary Committee’ to open an investigation into the affair.
Smith said he still has options on the table including conducting a minority hearing or exercising an option of inquiry.
‘Those options I will consider in the next couple of weeks,’ Smith said.”
Washington Post -- Setting impossible standards on intelligence
Writer Walter Pincus suggests that former Obama Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair got a raw deal.
In what almost reads like a column, Pincus says the job from which Blair was chased as a penalty for failing to connect the dots on the underwear bomber is an impossible position.
Created at the suggestion of the 9/11 commission, the DNI is supposed to get the intelligence from the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department, the NSA and everyone else so his agency can spot emerging threats.
Pincus points out that Blair’s agency never got the intelligence it needed about the underwear bomber from the State Department and the CIA. The Senate Intelligence Committee report that came out ahead of Blair’s scapegoating suggested he should have known anyway.
“Linking the White House request for Blair to leave to the committee's concerns over the Abdulmutallab episode would set a standard that no future head of any intelligence agency could meet. The failures were, in the first instance, human errors, and there will be more, over which no DNI could have direct responsibility. It would, in some ways, be much like calling for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to resign or be fired if sanctions against Iran do not work, or the Arabs and Israelis don't reach agreement in their talks.”
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