There's a lot to admire about the President's consensus-seeking style, however frustrating it can be to activists. But his press conference yesterday, and the management problems that led up to it, show the limits of that style in times of crisis. Hopefully the oil tragedy -- let's not call it a "spill" when it's more like a sustained explosion -- will help the Administration understand something that seems to elude them at times: You can't negotiate with disaster or compromise with danger.
The President's tendency to see and sometimes embrace both sides of an issue was in full view yesterday. One example: "You never heard me say 'drill, baby, drill'," he said about offshore drilling. True enough -- but he did say "drill," most famously a few short weeks before the BP disaster. "I don't agree with the notion that we shouldn't do (any drilling)," he said. "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced."
That statement's been used against him a number of times since, and the lawyerly use of the word "generally" hasn't helped him. The President alluded to this quote when he admitted he was wrong to believe "oil companies had their act together when it comes to worst-case scenarios," adding: "Now that wasn't based on just my blind acceptance of their statements. Oil drilling has been going on in the Gulf, including deepwater, for quite some time. And the record of accidents like this, we hadn't seen before."
But that's not a rational way to assess risk.
It's like an alcoholic saying "I've driven drunk for years and haven't had a serious accident yet." When a brilliant person like the President says something like this it looks
like his desire to consider all viewpoints has overwhelmed his ability to see things as they are. That's how this gifted man sometimes winds up saying things that are mind-bending in their denial of reality ("There is no dividing line between Wall Street and Main Street ... we stand or fall together.") Sometimes reality makes consensus difficult, but it must be seen as it is.
The President's message about future drilling yesterday was equivocal at best. He seemed to indicate a pro-drilling bias when he said his upcoming commission would ask the question, "How should this (drilling) proceed in a safe, effective manner?" What about asking if it should proceed, or whether it really can be done in a "safe, effective manner"? And why such a nuanced tone when addressing a shocked nation in search of leadership (53 percent of whom rate the President poorly on his handling of this crisis, according to Gallup)?
...Other remarks also illustrated the limits of the President's favored style -- one that might be described as "pause, cogitate, absorb, find middle ground" -- during a catastrophe. Sometimes the solutions are found by cutting through assumptions, not compromising with them. Consider Chuck Todd's question, "Why not ask BP to simply step aside on the onshore stuff?" Obama's response was a discourse on the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, BP's contracts with contractors, and the fact that "the Coast Guard and our military are potentially already in charge."
29 days later and they're potentially in charge??
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/obamas-press-conference-y_b_593848.html
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