The pelican was shaking, covered in oil, waiting to die and not alone. It was surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of its species, brown pelicans roosting on a small island in the shallows of the Gulf of Mexico amid an ecological disaster.
That's from Joseph Goodman's "Jindal sounding alarm as oil bypasses booms in Louisiana" (McClatchy Newspapers) and it does more to capture the Gulf Oil Disaster than any of Barack Obama's nonsense served up on Thursday. (Ava and C.I. cover the press conference here.) This is a crime scene and, Thursday, Barack admitted it was his responsibility, "The American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort."
He also insisted that British Petroleum were the "experts." Some experts. Everything they've attempted has failed. As Mark Sappenfield (Christian Science Monitor) reports today:
Following the "top hat," the siphon, and "top kill" will be LMRP, the lower marine riser package. The goal of LMRP, like the "top hat" containment dome and the siphon, will be to capture as much leaking oil as possible -- not to stop the well.
Like the White House, BP has no clue what it's doing. And America, the world, can't afford to wait while they try to figure it out. Tim Padgett (Time magazine) reports on some of the environmental damage while Steve Hargreaves (CNN Money) reports on some of the economic damage. It is a disaster and, yes, as we said last week (see "Editorial: Where's the leadership?"), it is a crime scene. Today, Reuters quotes US House Rep Ed Markey stating, "I think without question if the word criminal should be used in terms of an environmental crime against our country, that what's going on in the Gulf of Mexico is going to qualify." So why is BP still being allowed to control the crime scene? Barack said it was 'expertise' but nothing BP has done has worked thus far.
Here's a screen shot from last night of what's currently going on.
Does it remind you of anything?
Possibly it reminds you of NASA which should have you wondering why NASA wasn't put in charge of this long ago?
If you're not grasping why it's time for BP to step aside, grasp this from David S. Hilzenrath and Matt DeLong (Washington Post), "As BP prepared to implement another fallback plan to contain the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Obama administration and BP officials said crude could continue flowing into the Gulf of Mexico until August."
Barack thinks this shows leadership?
This is a crime scene and its time the kid gloves came off and all the weak asses (Robert Redford, that means you) refusing to stand up and call this crime out found the guts and the courage to stand up for the only planet we have to live on -- and stand up before the destruction goes any further.
There are no more passes, the earth doesn't have another pass to spare. It is time the people -- including people from other countries -- began demanding the White House gets off its lazy ass and takes action.