WaPo: Readers blame republicans for oil spill

[spanone]

Our Readers Who Comment are busy throwing rocks at what many see as a Republican regulatory atmosphere that resulted in the Gulf oil disaster after investigators discovered that several things were wrong with equipment that was supposed to prevent it.

The conversation has more than 400 comments and is full of cheap shots at the "drill baby drill" mantra of some Republicans and attacks on an anti-regulatory approach of the previous administration. Republicans respond by noting that the Obama administration wanted to restart offshore drilling but then placed it on hold after the Gulf situation exploded. Readers also express major long-term concerns about our thirst for energy and the price we are paying to satisfy it.

Meanwhile, as Steven Mufson and David A. Fahrenthold write, "Oil is still pouring into the gulf as federal agencies and others investigate the cause of the accident."

We'll start with frantaylor, who wrote, "Really you can look back at the history of engineering disasters, and EVERY SINGLE TIME the failure is in quality control... When it is not done, you get disasters like the Hartford Civic Center roof collapse or the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. Both of these disasters happened because an engineer made a faulty calculation and it was not caught by quality control... When you hear companies bragging about their profits, beware, it is usually because they are cutting back on quality control."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dot.comments/2010/05/blame_republicans_for_oil_spill.html?wprss=dot.comments

[wryter2000]

1. But, but, but...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4379818&mesg_id=4379818

ABC says Dems are going to get their butts kicked in November. Could it be people like politicians who allow robber barons to foul the planet? :crazy:

[HillbillyBob]

2. Truth is not a cheap shot

the rpigs want not government except when they want to peep into our private lives.

[Lorien]

3. I don't care who is a fault just FIX THE DAMN THING!!!!!!

We can lock up those responsible (yeah, like that'll happen) AFTER the gusher is stopped. Geez-we need all hands on deck here and most people are still finger pointing!

[gratuitous]

4. Oh noes! Not the cheap shots

It's just sooo unfair to take mindless nitwits to task for their simplistic sloganeering masquerading as public policy discussion! Don't do that, it's a cheap shot, sayeth the august and mighty Washington Post (whose own slogan is "We broke a story once 35 years ago").

And as for federal agencies investigating while the catastrophe continues to unfold, I hope Steven Mufson and David A. Fahrenthold realize that the gushing wellhead doesn't belong to We the People, it belongs to a private company that can't take care of it. It's that company's business to get cracking on a solution, but so far BP's most affirmative action has been to monopolize the video footage and prevent anyone from getting a true idea of the scope of this disaster, cutting off a wider-ranging analysis of the problem by limiting the number of people who can see what's going on in real time.

[havocmom]

5. If WaPo dislikes 'cheap shots at the "drill baby drill" mantra' ...

... maybe they should suggest the Republicans stop relying on silly sound bite slogans and use real language.

They said it. They were the party in charge when so many regs were rubbed away. They were the bosses when employees at the agency in charge of over seeing regulations/enforcement for extraction companies were busy diddling with extraction company supplied sex objects.

If the GOP doesn't like the fact that a chunk of readers are pissed at the party that set the stage for this disaster, they need to look beyond the views of their readers. Maybe a good look at GOP actions and inactions is in order

[bridgit]

6. Time to drag the Cheney family secret energy policies out of their coptic jars...

And into the sunlight. Fed by lies, their headlong fall into endless war profiteering and personal aggrandizement would still have to be oiled. We never talk about war anymore, but it takes allot of fuel to patrol the world, fly sorties even drones, and transport fuel & pressed hamburgers for Halliburton to flip in some other green zone somewhere

As was the case with the Nazi regime, oceans of refined petroleum products went that way to grease the lie that became an endless pursuit of endless war & no-bid crony war profits. Other wells would have to be drilled to replace that product or the whole of the American economy would grind to a rusted hulk. The Cheney Family & Crony Energy Policy would have to be concealed to hide the blunt removal of regs & oversight that would chase away drillers with even less regard for America than the Cheney's and their cronies. And republicans, as we know, supported it - every single bit - in goose stepping lock-step

But one man supervised the secretive, nefariously CEO-like implementation of that policy of irresponsible corporate anarchy. The rest are either rubes, or are still pretending that they do not know