Responding to Spill, Obama Mixes Regret With Resolve

[babylonsister]

I know I waited a lot of years to hear a president take responsibility, even when I think this is ultimately BP's fault.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28obama.html

Responding to Spill, Obama Mixes Regret With Resolve
By PETER BAKER
Published: May 27, 2010


WASHINGTON — President Obama uttered three words on Thursday that many of his 43 predecessors twisted themselves into knots trying with varying degrees of success to avoid: “I was wrong.”

Doug Mills/The New York Times



“In case you’re wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility,” President Obama told a news conference Thursday at the White House.

He strode into the East Room to mount a robust defense of his handling of the largest oil spill in American history, reassuring the nation that he was in charge and would do “whatever is necessary” to stop and clean up the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico. But by the time he walked out an hour later, he had balanced that with a fairly unusual presidential self-critique.

snip//

But the president’s concessions of missteps were striking. Admitting fault, after all, is not a common presidential habit, and happens only under great duress. The passive voice has been a favorite technique. President George Bush said “mistakes were made” during Iran-contra. President Bill Clinton said “mistakes were made” during campaign finance scandals. And President George W. Bush said “mistakes were made” during the firing of federal prosecutors.

When the younger Mr. Bush accepted responsibility for the response to Katrina, he did so by saying that the “results are not acceptable” and vowed “to address the problems.” Within hours, he modified his assessment by saying he actually was “satisfied with the response” if not “with all the results.”

Mr. Obama has shown a willingness to admit mistakes before. When his first nominee for secretary of health and human services, Tom Daschle, withdrew because of unpaid taxes, the president said with bracing bluntness, “I screwed up.”

He chose his words more carefully on Thursday, but he ticked off a list of ways his administration had not performed adequately. At one point, he suggested the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off the leak might have been avoided had his administration cleaned up what he called the cozy and corrupt relationship between regulators and industry sooner.

“I take responsibility for that,” he said. “There wasn’t sufficient urgency in terms of the pace of how those changes needed to take place.” He added: “Obviously they weren’t happening fast enough. If they were happening fast enough, this might have been caught.”

As for his drive before the spill to expand off-shore drilling, he said he still thinks he was right and that more oil will be needed until enough alternative fuels can be developed. “Where I was wrong,” he said, “was in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.”

On that, at least, he and his critics could agree.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. It is refreshing. But there is one thing missing - consequences.

I think Ken Salazar should be fired. I never thought he was the right guy for the job. With some of the cabinet appointments made, we cannot be surprised at results like this. These are the PEOPLE's resources and we need people in charge who are clearly on the peoples' side.

BP needs to be fined and punished enough that they and OTHER companies will not continue to look at fines about their unsafe practices simply being another "cost of business". It has to hurt them so badly monetarily that they and their stockholders get the message - NEVER AGAIN. No more Exxon Valdezs', no more Deepwater Horizons.

[Clio the Leo]

2. Kick. NT