Where was this clarity during the Bush administration? The failure of federal, state, and local regulators/agencies never absolved our previous President.
It was certainly absent if you’re looking for the MSM to provide it. But you’re missing the fact that Bush specifically was in favor of the failure of our federal, state, and local government and regulatory agencies. Need I quote Lord Reagan? I guess I do:
government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem
You can’t deny the government a legitimate role in any issue, no matter how large or small, and then expect government to be secretly housing a massive underwater engineering specialty, or to have regulated the offshore drilling industry into essential safety. This is the fundamental disconnect of the current argument, not that that stops the spread of utter nonsense.
Every prior GOP administration has systematically weakened regulations on offshore drilling. These chickens come home to roost and it’s suddenly all Obama’s fault? How? Why? In what universe does that make any rational sense?
And, of course, the anti-government right’s reaction to the crisis? Blame the government. Obama should (apparently) be down there, personally, running the mud shot or at the very least torturing somebody aboard the mud shot injection machine.
Now, of course, were he down there, you get to play the “government meddling is ruining BP’s brilliant plan” card. That’s what I call good policy.
Lemkin 