Reply #54: Why doesn't Olbermann and Maddow, at minimum, mention any of this?

[Phx_Dem]

Because it doesn't fit with their populist "follow the crowd" anger meme. I'm not making fun at honest anger about this because it is completely justified. What is not justified is to rage about it, pretending that nothing is being done while ignoring the actual facts of what's being done. http://www.whitehouse.gov/deepwater-bp-oil-spill /

And what about big mouth lunatic Carville? He feels the need to go on TV to rage and claim that the government has a "hands off" policy, while admitting in the same breath that Obama can't really do anything to stop the leak. If James is so concerned, you'd think he'd at least be informed about what is actually happening, but nooooooooo.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/5/26/870060/-There-isnt-a-magic-wand-to-make-this-go-away

On the most important point, Carville himself concedes that President Obama can't plug the hole. But he offers two concrete proposals for what the administration could have done to aid cleanup, neither of which would actually do that much.

First, he embraces the idea advanced by the former CEO of Shell that we simply use oil tankers to skim oil off the surface. That sounds great, except when you remember that most of the freaking oil isn't on the surface.

Second, he says Obama should get the Army Corps of Engineers to cut the red tape and approve the plan by Plaquemines Parrish to build a 60-mile stretch of barrier islands to keep the oil out. Two problems: (1) even on an accelerated schedule, the islands will take at least six months to build and (2) doing it that quickly means that the first storm the comes along will wash them away, including the sand used to build them which is in short supply. So the sand barrier would take too long to build, and even if we do build it, it will was away.

On an emotional level, I have tremendous sympathy for what Carville is saying. Like him, I live in southeastern Louisiana, so this is happening in my backyard (though I've only just recently moved here). But he seems to believe that the President could just wave a magic wand and fix this problem and make the oil go away. Well, he can't. When you spill over one hundred million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (with millions more being added each day), there just aren't any easy solutions.