Polls Show Americans Unhappy With Obama's Handling Of Oil Spill

'When put in contrast with the epically terrible ratings given to BP by the public in the same polls, the Obama slide may seem slight. But for a White House trying to shake accusations -- however ridiculous -- that the spill has become a new Katrina the numbers show that the administration has work to do before it regains public confidence.'

that's an exceedingly optimistic outlook given that the toxic effects of the dispersal agent alone will first begin to show in the months and years ahead.

This is just a case of The Guy in Charge Gets the Blame, regardless of whether he actually could have done anything about it or not.

Ask people what he should have done and you'll get a lot of vague ideas or impossibly unworkable solutions. I heard the numbskulls on Faux News last night talking about constructing a berm. Right. A 500 mile long berm. Great idea.

But for a White House trying to shake accusations -- however ridiculous -- that the spill has become a new Katrina

Why do you imply such accusations are "ridiculous" Mr. McMorris-Santoro?

The comparison is not meant to compare the disasters in their effect, but to compare the federal and presidential responses to the disasters in the first weeks after the disaster.

It's ironic because if one were to judge the latter from TPM's coverage in that time period, our government basically didn't do anything at all, i.e., certainly we don't know of anything they did from your coverage.

I don't think it's a ridiculous thing to think about at all, and neither does the Obama administration, it seems, or they wouldn't have held today's press conference, he wouldn't be traveling to the area for photos ops tomorrow, and everything would continue as in weeks past. They're doing P.R. damage control now because they realize they made a mistake in not doing it in the past.

Bush was forced to do a "buck stops here" mea culpa, however reluctant he sounded about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8az4CfEDpw

So far it looks like the Obama team is going with "I've been doing it all along, I just wasn't telling anyone about it, it was a secret."

I see right now they have the Admiral answering questions in detail about what they are doing and why and why you don't see certain things being done and why you see others being done. That's a first since the spill. Like with Katrina, there haven't been many answers on what was going on with the Feds at all, answers and explanations were M.I.A.

The amount of oil spilled corresponds well to the amount of campaign contributions BP and the rest of Big Oil have made to lawmakers to ensure their profitability and allow them to ignore things like a "blowout preventer."

http://www.facebook.com/campaigncorner

There doesn't seem to be a lot of research going into some of the comments I'm hearing. Obama is no progressive, but anyone concerned about (and active in) environmental protection will tell you that since Obama took office, things have improved tremendously -- though not in ways that get press. Now we have an actual, active, working, EPA generally staffed with people who know what they are doing.

Friends who work with environmental remediation tell me that the Obama EPA actually works to get things done.

I have often argued on these pages that TPM can be a bit tetchy when it comes to progressives, i.e. if a person makes a comment or takes a stance that "seems" progressive or un-moderate, it tends to get a comment like "uhh" or (between-the-lines) "another crazed progressive." However, progressives can be equally to blame when it comes to those who actually note positive changes when democrats are in office. Obama is, often, always wrong, always in the hands of big-oil-health-military, etc.

I am sure I am guilty, too.

However, facts are what facts are -- and they rarely fit into comfortable rhetorical frameworks. Arguments do, however. That's why facts and arguments are rarely the same.

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A note:

I am no expert on the facts-on-the-ground when it comes to this oil spill. My guess is that Obama is doing both more and less than arguments suggest.

The one point that I think important is this: Obama can sometimes be a bit too unflappable. Sometimes the arguments count - sometimes (as Pennsylvania's Rendell suggests) "putting on a wetsuit" counts. That's how Obama killed McCain in Iowa when the flood hit there. He showed up. He showed concern. And being there -- actually being a symbol -- does make a difference.

This is where I would fault Obama: he has not been enough of a symbolic presence. He has underestimated peoples' needs in this regard.

However, that has little to do with the facts-on-the-ground, as does Rendell's quip that Clinton would have put on a wet suit. Rendell is presiding over perhaps the most environmentally disastrous periods of Pennsylvania history (which for PA is saying a lot).