It Is Hard to Stay Credible if One’s Behavior Is Not Credible ─ The Obama Administration Continued to Shoot Itself in the Foot during BP’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Gusher

© 2010 Peter Free

 

06 October 2010

 

Politicians must be born with an aversion to truth

 

The bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Oil Drilling issued a report today criticizing the current Administration’s:

 

(a) too-low estimates of oil initially gushing from the blown-out oil well

 

and

 

(b) too-benign post-cap estimates of the oil remaining in the environment.

 

The Commission’s report is entitled The Amount and Fate of the Oil.

 

Background

 

Information on the BP Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon blowout is here (Wikipedia).

 

The post-spill report (which the Commission also criticizes) was entitled BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Budget: What Happened to the Oil?  It was not scientifically credible.  Many of us pointed out its intentional misdirection, just as soon as the report was released.

 

The National Commission was appointed by executive order in May 2010.

 

What the Commission’s draft report says

 

The draft report begins:

 

The federal government’s estimates of the amount of oil flowing into and later remaining in the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the Macondo well explosion were the source of significant controversy, which undermined public confidence in the federal government’s response to the spill.

 

By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem.

 

Federal government responders may be correct in stating that low flow-rate estimates did not negatively affect their operations.  Even if responders are correct, however, loss of the public’s trust during a disaster is not an incidental public relations problem.

 

The absence of trust fuels public fears, and those fears in turn can cause major harm, whether the public loses confidence in the federal government’s assurances that beaches and seafood are safe, or because the government’s lack of credibility makes it harder to build relationships with state and local officials, as well as community leaders, that are necessary for effective response actions.

 

 

© 2010 National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, The Amount and Fate of the Oil ─ Draft (visited 06 October 2010) (paragraphs split for online readability)

 

Will anything be learned?

 

Not a chance.

 

Why will nothing be learned?

 

The public’s attention span (to the degree that its attention can be focused on anything at all) is as short as its notoriously absent historical memory.

 

The overwhelming majority of us have difficulty recognizing the big picture, especially as it applies to the long term.  If something is not painfully stabbing us this instant, it is not interesting.

 

Two examples of our capacity to ignore and forget  ─ Iraq and Afghanistan

 

What happened in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is arguably much less important to the nation’s future than are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which Americans have been ignoring for many years.

 

If we can be apathetic about (a) thousands of American combat deaths and (b) trillions of dollars being spent on self-defeating warfare ─ we can just as easily not remember, or not care about, an oil spill that was incompetently handled.

 

Ask New Orleans people still displaced and further impoverished by Hurricane Katrina.

 

Ask the Haitians still waiting for the billion dollars that the United States promised them in post-earthquake aid.  They haven’t seen a cent.

 

So much for national honor.

 

America’s new way

 

Politicians operate deviously, maliciously, and incompetently because they get away with it.

 

The combination of self-seeking political manipulation and repeatedly demonstrated national governmental incompetence ─ both in the face of visibly pressing national challenges ─ is apparently the New American Way.

 

That’s sad, don’t you think?