Deep on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast, a diamond strip saw that was supposed to complete the final cut at the top of defunct, bleeding BP well has become "stuck," delaying, if not completely thwarting, progress with the capping operation.
With this latest news, it begins to seem as if this whole project is really jinxed. An optimist might observe that the oil is making its way to shore much more slowly than expected -- but it's still coming, and there's plenty more behind it. So we naturally ask ourselves, "Has anything about this incident yet gone right?"
Certainly that must be President Obama's feeling. This makes Courtland Milloy's commentary today all the more germane. Yes, Presidents, for better or worse, "own" whatever happens on their watch, even the events that can't be predicted or fixed. The oil spill becomes Obama's Hurricane Katrina. (Curious that both events involve Louisiana...if it could be shown that Monica Lewinsky had some connection to Louisiana, we'd really be onto something.)
Although Obama has been better than his predecessor about taking responsibility for such an exogenous, unpredictable, and insoluble event, his critics have been just as shrill and unforgiving as were Bush's critics five years ago, and for similar reasons. Neither President succeeded in seeming attuned to the human side of the disaster (not to say they weren't), so both were/are damaged politically by their failure to be God.
Milloy's piece correctly points out that when people are frustrated and angry they'll blame the President no matter how he handles the issue. And they will blame government, even if they're the sort who don't think government is necessary. It's not fair, but politics is a tough life.
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