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2010-05-01 Home Front: Politix

Oil slick poses political peril for Obama

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Posted by gorb 2010-05-01 05:10|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ] Top

#1 Not with his core constituency.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2010-05-01 06:01|| 2010-05-01 06:01|| Front Page Top

#2 Indeed, it's Katrina, the Exxon Valdez and the Indo tidalwave all rolled into one very bad thing. I expect we'll fuck it up per usual.

Posted by Shipman 2010-05-01 09:56|| 2010-05-01 09:56|| Front Page Top

#3 ...could pose the same kind of political threat to Mr. Obama's popular standing that the much-criticized handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina did for former President George W. Bush.

One can always dream, guys. But the reality is that Ogabe retains the MSM's worshipful allegiance. It'll take the proverbial "dead girl or live boy" type of scandal to bring him anything other than slobberingly positive press that would embarrass Kim Jong-Il.

Posted by RIcky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2010-05-01 11:12|| 2010-05-01 11:12|| Front Page Top

#4 For someone who can, by popular vote, walk on water, I doubt that oil will present much of a problem....

Posted by Uncle Phester 2010-05-01 11:28|| 2010-05-01 11:28|| Front Page Top

#5 What could have been done differently? Sounds like the Coast Guard was there pretty quick.

Posted by Rjschwarz 2010-05-01 11:44|| 2010-05-01 11:44|| Front Page Top

#6 Halliburton Cement Division

WASHINGTON An inadequate underwater cement job during the deep-water drilling process is emerging as a potential cause of the devastating oil spill.

Officials haven't said what they think caused the explosion. But speculation points to a process where cement is used to seal cracks in the ocean floor surrounding the tubing through which crude oil flows.

Friday, Halliburton confirmed that it was the "cementer" and said it had completed its job 20 hours before the explosion.

Denver Post wire services

Posted by Flapper Scourge of the Algonquins4926 2010-05-01 13:31|| 2010-05-01 13:31|| Front Page Top

#7 I'm torn.

I want to be fair to the responders -- Coast Guard, Interior experts, industry workers, etc., who I bet have been on this from day one and are working their tails off to contain the problem. I don't want them attacked for a 'slow' response.

I also acknowledge that a president can't be on top of everything; that's why he has advisors (and in this case, czars) and whole departments full of people to stay on top of things and advise him as to what's going on.

Then again, there was little if any such acknowledgement for George Bush after Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane was a disaster; the way the media treated GWB was a scandal.

So I'd like to be fair and sympathetic. Honest. Really.

Then again, giving the Democrats and Obama a taste of their own medicine strikes me as equally fair.

Posted by Steve White 2010-05-01 13:35|| 2010-05-01 13:35|| Front Page Top

#8 Then again, giving the Democrats and Obama a taste of their own medicine strikes me as equally fair.

yep. Note: don't set standards and bitch about it later when you're held to 'em

Posted by Frank G 2010-05-01 14:46|| 2010-05-01 14:46|| Front Page Top

#9 Then again, there was little if any such acknowledgement for George Bush after Hurricane Katrina

He at least was very aware of it. My understanding is that the governor didn't make a formal request for help.

Posted by gorb 2010-05-01 15:36|| 2010-05-01 15:36|| Front Page Top

#10 Then again, giving the Democrats and Obama a taste of their own medicine strikes me as equally fair.

As is the clear and obvious nature of the MSM as merely an auxiliary of one party, further reducing their nano level credibility to pico.

Pico- (symbol p) is a prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10−12 or 0.000000000001.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-05-01 16:19|| 2010-05-01 16:19|| Front Page Top

#11 Pico? What about femto?

I know there's a Femtoviolin at the 'Burg.

Posted by Bobby 2010-05-01 16:52|| 2010-05-01 16:52|| Front Page Top

#12 The double-standard of the media erks me as well but at least the NY Times is nailing him now. Still i don't really see how a quicker response could have taken form.

I'm also curious about the explosion. Is there anything about the explosion beyond the timing that seems to be beyond an accident? Eco-terrorist or terrorist? Do we even know enough to say at this point.

Posted by rjschwarz 2010-05-01 17:07|| 2010-05-01 17:07|| Front Page Top

#13 Look, guys, I don't like the President very much and I really don't want to give him credit for anything. That said...

I don't think there's a whole lot he _can_ do to help; rigs like the Deepwater Horizon are _hideously_ complex devices; building another one and outfitting it with everything from drill pipe, to risers, to blowout preventers, I suspect, would run into something like eight hundred million dollars. IMHO. (And that's just a WAG). I know some of the people who built that rig, two or three corporate takeovers ago, and REALLY, they're a lot smarter than me. Whatever went wrong, it's probably not a typical situation.

Probably the best thing the president can do is stay out of the way and let the experts try to fix the situation, whether it relies on repairing the BOP in-situ OR drilling a relief well. That, and hope and pray that they've picked the right experts at BP and whoever their government response team is.

(OH, and for crying out loud, don't screw around like they did on the Exxon Valdez spill, allow and encourage the use of bioremediation to help clean up the spill.)

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-05-01 17:38|| 2010-05-01 17:38|| Front Page Top

#14 rjschwarz: I'm under the impression from talking to Glenmore and others that the BOP's are basically a failsafe system, if they lose signal from the rig on their hydraulic control lines they're supposed to be able to close shut the hole, no matter what's in the way.

Currently there are two separate failures that have happened: there was a blowout of natural gas or oil pushed by natural gas somewhere on the rig floor, that killed everyone there. Somewhere about the same time something's happened that screwed up the blowout preventer's ability to both block a blowout, _and_ close manually further on down the timeline (they've tried this via submersible, and it doesn't seem to have worked).

So as far as sabotage goes, you'd need something that would need to simultaneously kill everyone on the rig floor _and_ damage the blow out preventer, which is way down under the rig under a couple thousand feet of water.

SO... just at first glance, and in my completely uneducated opinion... a blowout originating somewhere below the BOP's and damaging them somehow while in the process of moving up the risers to the rig seems a lot more plausible than some sort of bomb.

Whatever wild theory you come up with has to deal with the fact that the BOP's don't seem to have worked and go on from there.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-05-01 17:49|| 2010-05-01 17:49|| Front Page Top

#15 there is absolutely NOTHING Obama could do in this instance. There was also NOTHING W could do about Katrina. That didn't stop the hatred-fevered little minds of Liberals from attacking him. That's the bar they set. Let them leave a slime-trail beneath it. November should be salt on the path

Posted by Frank G 2010-05-01 18:11|| 2010-05-01 18:11|| Front Page Top

#16 I know there's a Femtoviolin at the 'Burg.

Somebody did not return it to its sterling silver case after the last time it was used. Goodness knows where the the draft has blown it. I've been hoping that Dave D. picked it up when last he ventured out from beneath the pool table in the O Club -- he's a bit of a pack rat, is as fond of sharp shiny things as he is of ammunition.

Posted by trailing wife 2010-05-01 19:19|| 2010-05-01 19:19|| Front Page Top

#17 Snow Thing,
'Fail-safe' BOPs exist, and as I understand it (don't know for certain), are mandatory in some countries, but not the US. Strange, as we have generally been the leader in deep water technology.

We have been given orders to make no speculation about causes or effects of this event. Presumably to avoid giving any indication of a corporate position; though since we are in no way involved, it is not for reasons of secrecy - more likely to avoid spreading misinformation.

Posted by Glenmore 2010-05-01 20:02|| 2010-05-01 20:02|| Front Page Top

#18 A few comments:

I've been over at Anthony Watts' place Watts Up With That?", where there are some other very intelligent and informed people discussing this, they don't have a clue, either.

"President" O'Bumble has one very serious problem in dealing with this disaster in his choice of Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. The man is an environut from western Colorado who has no love lost for the oil industry, and no ability to deal with anything beyond a third grade tour of the Washington Capital.

From all accounts, this is a "perfect storm" incident. What may well have happened is that the reservoir pressure was significantly higher than expected, something broke off and came shooting up the drill hole, blocking the BOP, and caused the fire on the drill floor, killing everyone there. The BOP may have partially worked, keeping flow rates down at first, but now has been overcome, and flow rates are increasing. IF THAT'S THE CASE, ALL BETS ARE OFF.

Posted by Old Patriot 2010-05-01 22:43|| 2010-05-01 22:43|| Front Page Top

23:41 Barbara Skolaut
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21:31 phil_b
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20:46 Grunter
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19:56 abu do you love
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