“The human element seemed invisible to the White House”

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's new book Leadership and Crisis recounts what Michelle Malkin described as Obama's snit fit on the tarmac during his first visit during the oilspill. Politico seems to be engaged in a little damage control as they scoop Jindal's details of the event and inject a bit of White House response to soften the blow.  Here is a sample:

On Obama’s first trip to Louisiana after the disaster, the governor describes how the president took him aside on the tarmac after arriving to complain about a letter that Jindal had sent to the administration requesting authorization for food stamps for those who had lost their jobs because of the spill.

As Jindal describes it, the letter was entirely routine, yet Obama was angry and concerned about looking bad.

"Careful," he quotes the president as warning him, "this is going to get bad for everyone."

Nearby on the tarmac, Jindal recalls, then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was chewing out his own chief of staff, Timmy Teepell.

“If you have a problem pick up the f——n’ phone,” Jindal quotes Emanuel telling Teepell.

The governor asserts that the White House had tipped off reporters to watch the exchange on the New Orleans tarmac that Sunday in May and deemed it a “press stunt” that symbolized what’s wrong with Washington.

“Political posturing becomes more important than reality,” he writes.

What might explain why Obama and Emanuel were so angry at Jindal is that the governor released his food stamp request the previous day to the media and indicated that he wanted a response by the close of business Monday.

And after Obama instituted a moratorium on offshore drilling, Jindal recounts that the president dismissed his concerns about the economic impact of the ban.

“I understand you need to say all of this, I know you need to say this, that you are facing political pressure,” Jindal quotes Obama telling him. When the governor said he was concerned about people losing their jobs, he said the president cited national polls showing that people supported the ban.

“The human element seemed invisible to the White House,” he writes.

Maybe, just maybe, Jindal needed to say what he did because he was concerned about the economic impact of the Obama's moratorium.  Jindal certainly wasn't the only one concerned.  Democratic strategist James Carville was screaming, "we're dying down here" at the time.  Was he facing political pressure?

Politico reports Jindal believes the administration's response was a metaphor for a more fundamental problem in the administration, "they're not connected to the reality on the ground."  Case in point: health care QED

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"Mr. President, What Took You So Long?"

Anne Leary linked a new RNC ad on her blog and in response to a great post by Sherry Antonetti over at Potluck.  Sherry had a few things to say after reading Obama's speech.   Here is a sample:

Remember the miles of boom offered early on, sitting in warehouses in Maine? It’s still there. Again, we don’t know why.

Raise your hand if you remember the Governors and legislators of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama were all begging for the Federal government to lift restrictions which they had not so that the states could act. Me. I remember that.

Those national guards that the Federal government mobilized? They’re hampered by the lack of a chain of command. So far only 1400 of the 17,500 authorized have been engaged. Why? The Coastguard and BP have to okay the missions. So because there are bureaucratic layers, the mess sits and the resources both causing the problem and capable of solving it, lay idle, wasting.

Now. Raise your hand if you remember Ken Salazar doing anything.

What? No hands?

Name three things you remember the President did do since April 20th.

Bet they weren’t 1) meet with BP 2) authorize personnel and equipment for the Gulf 3) mobilize the American people to help deal with the crisis.

Bet they were 1) Vacation in Chicago or North Carolina, 2) Golf and 3) Party with Sir Paul.

From Sherry's keyboard to the RNC's ears - so to speak - here is the ad:

James Carvillle: 'We're About to Die Down Here!'

It's starting to look a lot like Katrina to me. It seems James Carville agrees while Stephanopoulos spins like a top:

Oil plumes in the Gulf of Mexico

Via Memeorandum
The New York Times reports disturbing evidence the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may be much worse than originally reported:

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Scientists studying a video released this week of the leak at its' source suggest that as many as 3.4 million barrels of oil could be leaking into the ocean:



The latest efforts to contain the leak have failed.  The application of dispersants has made the surface water clearer but it appears the problem areas deep in the ocean waters is much worse than expected.  BP plans to reinsert the tube that could contain the oil as it leaks right away.  Nevertheless, oil has been leaking at high rates for nearly a month now and there doesn't appear to be a solution available that will certainly fix the problem at its' source.  The Exxon Valdez disaster seems dwarfed in comparison to this leak.

If you read the entire article by the Times, take note there is one word missing from the lengthy article.  Not once do they mention the President, not once.  Dare I say it?  What if Bush?  The chances the Times would run an article on a disaster of these proportions without mentioning Bush are slim to none.Every picture of an oil-covered bird would have Bush somehow associated with it.  I am not suggesting the same should be done because it is inherently unfair to hang an entire disaster on the sitting President.  At some point however, the failure to contain this disaster along with mounting evidence the White House colluded with BP to keep the extent of the disaster from the public leads to the inevitable question:  "Is this Obama's Katrina yet?"