The Sunshine Empire

The horror of the Gulf Of Mexico oil spill has continued for over a month now, but the political implications and the political calculus is fascinating. When hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 on the heels of Social Security privatization efforts and the disastrous Harriet Meyers nomination, Democrats everywhere pounced on the haphazard response to the recovery and rescue efforts of the Bush Administration. Conservatives consistently defended the administration in two ways. On one hand they argued that the response was perfectly timed, and also that it should not be the government’s place to protect a group of people warned to flee ahead of time.

Now another disaster is occurring on the gulf coast and conservatives find themselves in a complicated situation. In order to capitalize politically on the growing disaster of the oil spill the republicans and conservatives have had to finesse a couple of contradictory points. One approach has been to point to a time-line of delay on the part of the administration to say in essence, Obama dragged his feet much like Bush. Now this essentially renders their earlier defense of the Bush response null and void. It also creates a false comparison of two totally different situations. There were no living beings starving or in danger to rescue while Obama waited to act. The time frames are comparable but the situation is most assuredly not. Obama deserves some blame for taking BP at their word and for not taking control of a shame of an inspection regime. Yet unlike Bush there are no helicopters or food and water to send immediately to the well head 5000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico. Republican attempts to blame Obama for the oil spill disaster also run counter to conservative cannon of the free market’s infallibility.

Conservatives and Libertarians hold it as gospel that big business and the free market are always good and government is always bad. That kind of child-like absolutism serves them well in campaigns while firing the base, but it becomes problematic when trying to blame the President for a disaster caused by big business. Now those same republicans attempt to discredit President Obama for not getting the government in control of the situation faster. The same conservatives who bragged about trying to drown government in the tub love to blame its ineffectiveness afterward on democrats.

Yet my favorite political high wire acts when it comes to the oil spill political blame game are those who attempt to shill for the oil companies themselves while also trying to blame the Obama administration. Comedians like Rush Limbaugh make the laughable claim that the level of oil coming out of the spewing oil head is akin to the natural level of oil seepage from the gulf floor, while also calling it Obama’s Katrina. Yet Katrina wasn’t a big deal when Bush reacted to it. Even Rand Paul made the laughable claim that it was un-American to criticize British Petroleum. After all of it I’m still left confused. Was Katrina not a big deal, or a big deal now that we want to throw Obama under the political bus. Also, if business is so infallible, then why is the government to blame for its response?