Sex & drugs & lots of dead oil workers

An explosion kills a number of oil workers and BP is accused of causing the tragedy through a mix of indifference and incompetence. Sound familiar? It should, because this happened back in 2005 ^[1], when a BP explosion killed 15 (the most most recent explosion only killed another 11 ^[2], so by this measure their performance is improving). BP’s record is filled with incidents where they jeopardized the environment — see Prudhoe Bay ^[3] — but the truly shocking thing is that they’ve caused so much human death in such a short time. How did they get away with this? As has happened so many times in recent years, props must be given to the Bush administration.

It’s no secret Dick Cheney worked tirelessly to help big oil companies. (And for the record, the efforts of Dick and people like him are the opposite of capitalism — throwing tax credits and even outright subsidies ^[4] at an industry that should be capable of taking care of itself ensures bloated companies go blessedly untouched by the invisible hand of the free market.) In particular, Cheney’s efforts supporting the “cost-saving” measure of eliminating remote-control shut-off switches ^[5] has proven disastrous (the switch costs $500,000; the eventual clean-up costs of the spill will exceed that by just a little). Worse, he allowed a culture of corruption to develop in agencies that were supposed to be making sure the trains ran on time. The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service often served as little more than a rubber stamp for the energy consortium, which is understandable because those government employees were really high and getting laid. ^[6] (They also sometimes accepted kickbacks of a non-sexual or narcotic nature.) For a presidential candidate who always crowed about bringing morality back to Washington, you did a heckuva job, Bushy.

Following Bush would be tricky for anyone, but Obama increasingly seems ill-suited to the job. I think he’s capable of bold action — even if you despise his health care bill, it was a fearless move — but bold action taken incredibly slowly. Disasters don’t pause so you can take a few months to form a blue ribbon commission and collect your thoughts properly. I don’t know whether the President actually decided to step back and simply allow BP to mastermind the response to the spill (after all, with their track record, why wouldn’t you trust them to do the right thing in a timely manner?), but Obama certainly gave the impression that he did. It’s tough overcoming the past errors of the Bush administration, which combined the sneakiness of Nixon, the corruption of Harding, and the ineptitude of Carter. Yet that is the job Obama campaigned for. It’s time he does it.