Milton Friedman once said that "the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem itself."
Obama glorifies himself as an honest, hard-working, dignified leader of academic merit; but his record may signify otherwise. His cries against the Bush's administration handling of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina might indicate his advocacy for the role of federal government in crisis management; yet for some reason, he is deflecting sole responsibility for the spill's clean-up unto officials other than himself.
Sure, the situations differ - where hurricane Katrina's effects claimed American lives, the oil spill has a more focused environmental impact. But the contradiction is the same.
In a recent interview with Politico, Obama rather bombastically claimed that "it is fair to say [that], if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said that we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government over regulation and wasteful spending."
As if to say that the management crisis is the fault of those weary of unnecessary government spending and regulation - that had they not stood in the way of Obama's exalted plan for big-government takeover of private industry, this catastrophe would have surely been thwarted... hmm...
One of the most damning conclusions reached after Katrina was that people actually believed that more legislation could have sooner remedied the hardship felt along the gulf shore. In fact, this was precisely wrong - it was too much bureaucratic nonsense and red tape that kept relief efforts (like the distribution of clean water) impossible. Doesn't anyone remember FEMA??
In any event, Obama's pompous reaction to the interviewer's suggestion that he is simply not doing enough speaks to his very nature. Since his inauguration, he has insisted that we stop passing blame from individual to individual, corporation to corporation; yet he insists that he cannot be held to any degree of responsibility in the Gulf situation.
Maybe it's true that the role of the executive is not suited for single-handedly solving the hardship of the spill; but if this is the truth, then Obama and his supporters owe one big apology to the Bush administration. I guess the view from the top is different, especially when you're trying to uphold the facade that you do, actually, care.
