Plaquemines Parish President: "He cares and he's a hands-on guy. I was real impressed."

[Clio the Leo]

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Billy Nungesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish whose frustrations about the federal government response have been featured prominently on TV in the past few weeks, told ABC News that in the private meeting the president had with local leaders here today, President Obama "chewed me out."

Nungesser, a Republican, told ABC News that President Obama "told me that we need to communicate."

He said that he told President Obama that after his first visit to the region a few weeks ago, "We got the jack-up boats done cause of you. And you spent more time with us than any other president. But since then, it was a bottleneck. Things weren't getting done. All of it was sitting in the marsh."

Nungesser said the president told him, "'Well you know, if you can't get it done through the chain of command' -- and he's made some changes; we've got a guy on the ground now that can make decisions -- he said, 'you pick up the phone and call the White House. And, if you can't get me on the phone, then you can go blast me.'"

"And I said, 'Well, Mr. President, I didn't want to blast you. I'll blast the Coast Guard for not making BP be accountable.' And I know he is the Coast Guard. So, in a sense, you know, he was right."

Nungesser said that "if things happen like they happened after the last meeting, you won't see me blasting anybody because things happened right after that. And things are happening today. The oil that we showed you is being cleaned up. There's equipment all over the parish and we do have a senior person from the Coast Guard in our office now that can make decisions and can hold BP's feet to the fire, because they are the ones that should be stepping up to the plate."

He concluded: "I think he cares and he's a hands-on guy. I was real impressed."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/05/parish-president-president-obama-chewed-me-out.html#tp

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Plaquemines Parish Billy Nungesser, center, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, gets a briefing on the oil spill at the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Grand Isle, La. , Friday, May 28, 2010.

[ProSense]

1. Clearly

the Jindal fans aren't happy.

[K8-EEE]

2. but, but, he didn't wave a magic wand and make it all go away

and he didn't do any dramatic grandstanding like Giuliani or Jindal. Waaah.

[Cha]

5. Pres didn't huff and puff and

blow the house down..and he neglected to make some media types happy.

[Still Sensible]

3. This was an important meeting. Now CNN, which

featured Nungesser extensively, needs to follow up and get his take now... probably only 50/50 they will though.

[Cha]

6. I say 1 out of 100

chance they will.

[Pirate Smile]

8. It's no fun if he isn't slamming the President. More Carville and Matlin, stat.

Any Dems who never really liked Obama will do.

[Clio the Leo]

10. You'll notice I have the article a different title....

.... I didn't feel like the original headline, "Parish President: President Obama 'Chewed Me Out'" matched the tone of everything else Mr. Nungesser said.

[Cha]

4. I know it's been really hard

for people who are so affected by the giant oil leak that's eating the life in its path..

It's good to see when people appreciate what's being done to clean this up and not make it about themselves a la carville, matalin, and mediawhores inc.

<snip>

.."He seemed, in fact, to delight in hearing he had gotten under the president's skin, noting that Obama had been defensive about criticism of his response during an East Room news conference.

"If he had one bullet and James Carville and Tony Hayward were sitting there, who would he shoot? I wouldn't take my chances," Carville said."

<more>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052704545.html?hpid=topnews

[NJmaverick]

7. K&R

[babylonsister]

9. WE know that, I'm so happy to read Billy Nungesser gets it. nt

[Jennicut]

11. Good to see. I know Billy is a Republican but I also think he is deeply

effected by the oil coming up in the marshlands. I am happy to see he and the President have communicated. Repub or Dem, this is a disaster for everyone. I even talked to my father in law last night on the phone. He is a Republican and was near tears about it as he used to live in Florida and loved the everglades and made frequent trips to LA as well. He is rethinking everything he thought about offshore drilling. The only good thing to come out of this is the ability to change some people's minds on that.

[ProSense]

12. What would life be without Newsweek trying to hype the Katrina meme

It was obvious from the first stories of spreading oil slicks that political peril lurked for the Obama administration. Republicans wasted little time raising the idea of “Obama’s Katrina.” The initial reaction by the spinmeisters at the White House was to avoid “owning” the disaster. President Obama pointedly called it “BP’s oil spill.” Generally Obama’s approach tends to be prudent and cool—the “No-Drama Obama” style he showed during the 2008 campaign. But he may have been a little too cool. Historian Douglas Brinkley told NEWSWEEK that Obama needed a “bullhorn moment,” a time when he could have shown defiant leadership, à la George W. Bush climbing on the rubble of the World Trade Center to figuratively wave his fist at Al Qaeda. “Instead,” says Brinkley, “there was a lot of lawyering up.” A senior White House official, speaking anonymously in order to allow his scorn to show, asked with a straight face, “How did that bullhorn moment work last time? You know, it was good for a moment until we parked 150,000 kids in Iraq and are still figuring out the problem.”

<...>

Obama did go to the gulf on May 2, but it wasn’t much of a trip. White House officials were wary of making Obama look like George W. Bush, viewing Katrina’s devastation from 30,000 feet, but they were unable to get him close to the slick, which was still offshore. Instead he drove through a rainstorm to a Coast Guard station and gave an unmemorable speech.

<...>

The administration’s attempts to get tough sometimes made it look like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Interior Secretary Salazar repeated his vow to keep the government’s boot on BP’s neck for results, telling reporters: “If we find they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately.” But Adm. Thad Allen, the Coast Guard commandant who has been overseeing the government’s response to the disaster, told a talk-show host the same day that only BP had the means to deal with the leaking well a mile below the sea. “They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to be solved,” he said.

Everyone was suddenly a self-appointed expert. A White House official fumed: “(New York Times columnist) Bob Herbert says we should get our best and brightest down there. Well, guess what? They were down there three weeks ago! (Sen.) Bill Nelson (of Florida) says we should put the military in charge. Unless I missed something, the Coast Guard is part of the military.”

The official’s frustration was forgivable, or at least understandable: the slick was finally reaching the gulf shoreline, and television crews were there. Viewers tuned in to see once beautiful birds, soaked in oil, lying dead, as the brown goop crept into the gulf’s fragile marshland. For Billy Nungesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish, La., where the Mississippi River dissolves into a maze of estuaries and marshes, Armageddon had arrived. Short and wide, Nungesser is normally cheerful and outspoken, but last week he was fuming. He lashed out at BP and the Coast Guard, calling Allen “an embarrassment” and “a cartoon character.” “This guy has done absolutely nothing to help us,” Nungesser told NEWSWEEK. “To this day, they don’t have a plan. BP don’t have a plan…None of them have stepped up to the plate.”

link

[butterfly77]

30. That historian Brinkley says//

The Pres should spend a few days there and have lunch and dinner with the locals. Did he ask bush to do that. Brinkley,Sanchez and anderson cooper are doing their damnedest to blame this Pres no matter what.

Don't they think the Pres has other things to do besides sitting their to prove something to them so they can just keep complaining anyway..

[impik]

13. But he's not YELLING and pulling his hair on TV. He's got no emotions!

[WeDidIt]

14. OMFG!!! That look on Jindal's face!!!!

He looks PISSED OFF!

Like he was thinking, "that motherfucker just took charge and smacked down any shot I had of being the big guy in this thing."

[Mimosa]

16. Jindal is one of the good guys

Nobody but you sees a 'pissed off' expression. Actually Barack Obama and Bobby Jindal are sort of similat personality wise. Jindal is not a big egoist.

The all Republicans are bad act is counter-productive when the ecology of South Louisiana's marshlands may be ruined for a century and the Gulf become a toxic dead zone. Nearly 2 million people or more in coastal states have jobs related to seafood and tourism.

Politics as usual isn't helpful now. Bobby Jindal is trying hard to serve the interests of Louisiana and this nation.

[FrenchieCat]

17. Jindal has been very political.....

to say otherwise is to have missed him every time he speaks.....
when he complaints and acts like being a governor means there is nothing
that is just his job, and everything he does is an heroic giant breakthrough.

[Mimosa]

19. Frenchie, I have ONE big issue

I don't think people who haven't lived near the coast of Louisiana realise how fragile the area is and what the long time ramifications are for the Gulf of Mexico. Jindal has never politicised this issue. It is too big. Many DUers are serious about the environmental issues and knowledgeable thank goodness. A few need to catch up. This could well turn out to be at least on a par with previous environmental disasters. It's worse than the Valdez by far. It's a different kind of poisoning than Chernobyl, but it's on that par.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html?hp

In Grand Isle, La., President Obama promised to triple the federal personnel along the most threatened stretches of the coast.

“We’re in this together,” he said, gesturing to the three governors, two Louisiana senators, a congressman and other officials he had just met with for more than two hours.

Even if the leak is stopped, “we face a long-term recovery and restoration effort,” Mr. Obama added. “America has never experienced an event like this before,” he said.

Such sentiment plainly was aimed at answering “the anger and frustration” that Mr. Obama acknowledged many residents and political leaders here are feeling, and at blunting charges that his administration had abandoned them as the Bush administration was accused of doing after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis. I’m the president, and the buck stops with me,” Mr. Obama said.

[FrenchieCat]

21. Backing up my statement......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8436093&mesg_id=8436093

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8442780

[Mimosa]

22. I won't play 'hate the Governor'...

I won't play 'hate the Governor' because I care about the larger issue.

I think both Jindal and Obama are concerned deeply about this catastrophe. Sometimes 'politics as usual' is inappropriate.

[ProSense]

18. "Jindal is not a big egoist. "

"Bobby Jindal is trying hard to serve the interests of Louisiana and this nation."

Is that why he lied about Katrina in response to Obama's speech last year?

[Mimosa]

20. Going after Jindal won't help the larger issue

What Jindal is doing NOW is what counts. Same for Obama, now and in the future.

[ProSense]

23. What Jindal is doing now is posturing.

Going on television and saying that the President needs to load equipment onto Air Force One before his recent trip is idiotic political posturing.

[ShortnFiery]

24. As much as we all laughed our butts off at Jindal's "Jimmy the Page" moment, he's been the MOST ...

hands ON as any politician.

I can be a partisan democrat too and I don't like the ideology of ANY republican.


HOWEVER, Jindal has truly stepped up to the plate and is there, in the marshes every damn day since this disaster began.

Like it or not, he is going to come out of this situation with a much better image. And despite his f**ked up overall ideology, he's truly earned the appreciation from his constituents.

[ProSense]

25. Jindal continued to claim that he received no response about the berms

when he in fact knew the plan was being studied and the dangers associated.

[ShortnFiery]

26. Oh come on? He is working his butt off and just because we don't like him doesn't mean

that he's not goosing the system to get things done. A democrat would NOT behave any different. It's an emergency situation there and he's making sure the ASSETS will get there ASAP.

[Jennicut]

29. Prosense is right. Haley Barbour did not want any of the berms to

effect Mississippi and agrees with the army corps of engineers only allowing the building of some of them, while Jindal kept whining. Don't fall for Jindal's act. He is just posturing. Hands on? I wonder how people effected by volcanoes feel about him being hands on. It only matters to him when it hits home. Hypocrite of the worst kind.

[WeDidIt]

28. Bobby Jindal is a PRICK, fuck that motherfucker

HE is more responsible for this than most people becaus ethat mealy mouther motherfucker pushed the bill that let it happen.

[blitzen]

34. If by "good guy" you mean a crass political opportunist willing to...

destroy his state's flagship university (which had been making steady upward progress for the past 15 years) for his own selfish ambition, then, yes, Jindal is a "good guy."

[lunatica]

15. Thank you Clio. You always bring balance to DU

And you do it with facts.

[Clio the Leo]

32. Awww .... thanks.

:hug:

[jillan]

27. That's an impressive statement because Nungesser has been all over the msm lately crying for help.

Big K & R!!!

[Peacetrain]

31. Thank you for the op... good to see

[Clio the Leo]

33. Nungesser continued the praise this morning on CNN...

... while he slammed BP pretty hard, he said that he President "felt their pain" basically (didn't use that exact phrase, but that's what he meant) and that since the President had been in town Friday, things were starting to move.

Personally, I'm hoping the President goes down there once or twice a week (he typically flies that much in a week anyway.) If BP cleans the beach JUST for him ... it wont take long before the coast is cleaner than ever before, provided he just picks a different beach for every visit. :)

[Cha]

35. This KICK is for msnbc's norah o'donnel.. nt