THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT, FOR COMING DOWN TO LOUISIANA

[skip fox]

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for returning to Louisiana. Like many others, I realize you may not be able to do more than you are already doing, but the perception of your engagement with this environmental catastrophe may determine your Presidency.

Like James Carville and many others in this area, I believe you still have a chance for "a bull-horn moment." Like Carville I also believe that if you were on site and deeply engaged, you and your advisers may be able to creatively engage this problem and discover ways in which we might stop the well, divert, disperse, and/or clean up the damage more efficiently and thoroughly.

I would suggest you create a presence in the Gulf region. A highly visible Presidential Command Center staffed with technicians, engineers, scientists, economists, etc., a brain trust that is very visible (which will help you politically) and actively engaged on site (which may well benefit the environment and economy).

I don't think we have begun to realize what this might become. If it becomes even worse than expected, the entire nation will come to feel what we along the coast do today. We are emotionally devastated. Therefore, discernible presidential engagement and activity will only help you (and possible the environment and culture) in the future.


Sincerely,

Skip Fox
Sunset, LA

[Laf.La.Dem.]

1. Agree 100%

Hi neighbor :hi:

[skip fox]

19. I didn't see you were from Lafayette. I teach at UL, live outside of Sunset.

:)

[skip fox]

2. Here's how we feel down here:

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/06/louisiana_deserves_answers_mr.html

http://cmsimg.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?NewTbl=1&Site=DG&Date=20100604&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=6040801&Ref=PH&Item=1&Maxw=542&Maxh=352&q=60

[bluestateguy]

10. That is not how the "people" feel

That is how an elite newspaper editorial board feels.

[skip fox]

14. You've spoken with them? I have. I am one of them.

[Crystal Clarity]

17. Great. Now how about tackling Jindahl

for not calling up the National Guard troops he was authorized to send?

[bluestateguy]

20. The NOLA piece lost me when it started whining about the deepwater drilling moratorium

And I found the tone of the editorial to be smirky and condescending, which is typical prose for newspaper editorial boards.

[skip fox]

21. Less. That too is a prevelant attitude down here. Take us to task, but try to understand.

[Juneboarder]

3. I couldn't agree more...

It's a shame I have yet to visit the Gulf, and now its being destroyed.

[bdamomma]

18. me too, I want to go to New Orleans.

[newtothegame]

4. When did you send this? nt

[skip fox]

5. Not for the squeemish, a slide show of oiled wildlife from my local paper:

http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DG&Dato=20100604&Kategori=NEWS01&Lopenr=6040801&Ref=PH

(The letter was was never sent other than through the posting. Earlier in the week or last week I sent a similar one and about 10 people on DU called me stupid. They thought I was listening to Fox too much. I was listening to the people down here and the political winds elsewhere. As Carville was. As so many down here are.)

When the President comes, we know he cares. The equation becomnes that simple. But we know he can't always come, so a presidential presence would be the next thing.

If I was Obama, I'd be calling Carville.

[bdamomma]

24. poor things they did not ask for this.

[skip fox]

25. exactly

[HillbillyBob]

32. My home state of WV is being 'mountaintopped' for profit

and is destroying a way of life and the beauty there.
My heart goes out to the folks and animals of the gulf.
I lived in Ft Lauderdale Fl from 83 to 02 and have been to many of the now endangered areas of SoFla I'm glad I got to see it when..
I lived there almost 20 yrs and saw the glades drained and paved and lived through the droughts(which could have been sooo much worse) fires in the glades, so smoky you could not see to drive up the beach on A1A. I have been to KW and to Destin and to Dauphin Island, I am kind of sick and hollow about the how fubar mess.
I was up to my hips in the leftovers from Hurricane Andrew so I have seen destruction the place that I worked was completely wiped out I mean not even any wreckage on site it was elsewhere.

Seeing a couple of citizens on the beach on the news, picking up tarballs on their own. If I were able I would be down there too. I did not catch where they were.

[joeybee12]

6. Sorry...meant to rec, hit un-rec

:blush:

[JuniperLea]

7. I'll counter the unrec for ya... no worries! eom

[joeybee12]

11. Thanks!

:hi:

[JuniperLea]

8. Emotional support is essential for human beings...

"We are emotionally devastated."

I live in So Cal, and I'm devastated too. I walk the local beaches every weekend and I see and appreciate the wildlife. To me, wildlife means we're all still alive. When I see the gulf beaches and wetlands, and precious creatures suffering and dying because of this out-of-control monster that humans have created, it rips my heart out. I see the derricks offshore along "my own" beach, and I shudder... time bombs?

Wells just north of The Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach:

Derricks between Huntington Beach and Catalina Island:

The beautiful beach... we're taking pictures every single weekend now... just in case we lose this too... :cry:

[skip fox]

9. Yes, we are all in this. "No land is an island," as the poet meant to write.

(I.e., John Donne.)


On edit: the pictures are haunting. Surrounded by silence. The silence of anticipation.

[JuniperLea]

12. "The silence of anticipation."

That's it, exactly... I feel impending doom... and there's nothing I can do but watch, wait, and appreciate these final moments of beauty.

[felinetta]

13. Carville's wife Mary, was one of Dick Cheney's henchman. Why doesn't anyone ask

him about her and is he disgusted with the secret oil
meetings.

[Bluenorthwest]

36. Ask her? Why does the current administration keep the secret?

Why are Cheney's meetings still secret, under Obama? That is not Carville or his wife, nor the gallons of botox they must both have in them, that is President Obama's choice. It is secret at this point because of him. So why don't you ask him about it?

[felinetta]

15. I understand Carville's frustration, but it is a little bit over the top. Bill Press says

he thinks Carville is kicking this into even higher gear
because he wanted Hillary for
Pres.  I think there is truth in this. Didn't he say, Bill
Clinton would have swam
to the leak and closed it.  Please.

[skip fox]

16. You're right. But such a motivation doesn't make the observation inaccurate.

Bill Press is not the one whose advice I would take in terms of a political impact in such a catastrophe. Press has been resonating for so long in an inner-beltway echo chamber he has lost touch with the country. Or, another way to look at it: Press's conventional mentality and settled way of thinking are not appropriate instruments to understand the political (and physical) way of handling such an off-the-charts event.

[Mimosa]

33. No. Carville is a good cajun man.

Carville understands exactly what's at stake and what has been lost.

Maybe most people who've never lived in South Louisiana cannot.

[gratuitous]

22. Nice sentiments

But you know it's not going to cut any ice with the yammering Republican complainers, who will always find something to bitch about. This morning, it was "the president didn't meet with this group, so he ain't done nothin'!" I fully expect it to devolve down to the point of "Obama didn't personally call on William Buford Robert Tanner of Plaquemines Parish, and if he didn't meet with Billy Bo Bob, it don't mean nothin'!"

What disturbs me most is the play these whiners get from the national media. Not to mention all the oil jobs that are going to be "lost" because of a contemplated moratorium. How about all the real, live actual jobs (fishing, tourism, etc.), numbering in the thousands, that are just flat gone because of BP's criminal negligence and corner-cutting?

[skip fox]

23. By taking the moment Obama will not silence the Fox crazies, But he

will make them seem crazy. The main stream may give thiese jokers a place to vent, but their remaining common sense (if not decency or ethics) will make them play clips of Obama's engagement. Say clips of his conference calls with the leaders at a Crises Command Center.

I believe he will not only blunt his critics' criticism, but turn the story to his favor. Especially as progress is made.

[bdamomma]

26. Where did Pres Obama go this time? did they take him through

the marshes, Rachel Maddow should have showed him around.

[skip fox]

27. Right. And the people trying to solve the problem who do well to

live down here for a time. If Obama brought in the best and brightest on this and set them up in the area, they'd know the problem on the ground, they'd sense the urgency and human and animal impact, etc.

[alarimer]

28. Yet another Potemkin photo op visit

Do they really need this hassle?

Like anyone really believes he "feels their pain" while cozying up to big business?

[skip fox]

29. How his visit is being reported in the NY Times:

<snip>

President Obama made the decision to postpone his trip to Indonesia and Australia, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told pool reporters traveling here with the president. "The president made the decision that with all that’s going on, particularly on the response right now, it would be difficult to go,” he said.

Mr. Obama has called the spill his “highest priority” and the White House understands it will absorb a considerable portion of the president’s time this summer. The failure to stop the leak after more than six weeks has fed concern about the administration’s powerlessness in the face of this crisis, and the White House has been determined to show that it is fully engaged.

The president arrived at the New Orleans airport in Kenner, La., at 1:07 p.m., and went into a field house at the airport for a briefing.

<snip>

[Scuba]

30. All-time best DU username

[Trillo]

31. Good ideas. No, Great ideas.

recommend

Obama still has believers, even among his critics, but the clock is ticking.

[Blue_Roses]

34. where is Sunset, LA?

I'm grew up in Shreveport and my neighborhood was Sunset Acres. Thought I knew all LA towns... :P

It's hard to look at those pictures of the oil-soaked sea life. I remember in the 70's when visiting my grandparents in Galveston, we couldn't swim in the gulf due to an oil spill. That was years ago and here we are again.

[skip fox]

35. Sunset is 20 miles north of Lafayette, where I teach.

Lafayette is in mid- to south-western Louisiana, but I suspect you know that.