The Federal Response to the BP Oil Spill vs Hurricane Katrina

Over at Power Line, John Hinderaker asks whether President Obama  failed to respond to the April 21st explosion of a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and the subsequent oil leak. He makes the comparison to the Hurricane Katrina response. That was clearly the primary responsibility of local responders, i.e., the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana, a responsibility they failed at miserably. The response to the oil spill, miles out to sea, is the primary  responsibility of the federal government, a responsibility it appears to have failed at by dithering and delaying action until nine days after the explosion. Now measures to contain the spilling oil appear to be too late to do much good and damage to coastlines and fisheries will be far worse as a result.  I think this incindent just gives further proof to the charges that Hurricane Katrina was cynically seized on as an opportunity to damage George Bush politically.

There is a basic difference between this incident and Hurricane Katrina, to which it is being compared. In the case of Katrina, the primary responsibility for disaster response lay with the local and state governments. The local response was very poor; among other things, the governor of Louisiana was slow to call out the National Guard. Here, responsibility lay with the Obama administration from the beginning. State and local governments have no jurisdiction and no ability to deal with an oil spill miles out to sea. Only the federal government can act. It didn't, until, perhaps, it was too late

Read the whole thing.

Compare and Contrast

If you aren't convinced by now that The New York Times is completely in the tank for the Bolsheviks Democrats, read "That Was Then, This Is Now", over at Powerline for an interesting and revealing juxtaposition of how they editorialized on the early Bush administration Republican deficit spending and how they are treating the early Obama administration Democrat deficit spending now.

Powerline on Obama: "Let Them Eat Steak"

That's the post title here. Dozens of people in Kentucky have died due to the icy weather of last week yet. It took 5+ days for FEMA to make an appearance and as far as I know, President Obama has yet to say a thing about it, let alone take any action, such as declaring it a disaster area.

"Many on the web--but no one in the mainstream media--have commented on the fact that Obama has not even pretended to do anything about the massive ice storm that has disabled much of Kentucky and neighboring states. It took days for FEMA to swing into action. Why is that not a scandal? Days went by before Kentucky's governor called out the National Guard. Why did no one blame Obama for failing to call out the Guard sooner? Probably because he lacks the constitutional power to do so; but the Constitution hasn't changed since 2005."

If this had happened on George W. Bush's watch, he'd have been pilloried in the press, despite the fact that first response is a primarily local responsibility, but President Obama gets a complete pass. One of the Instapundit's readers sums it up nicely:

"What Katrina taught the media was that they could hurt Bush by lying. What 2008 taught them was that they could help Obama by not reporting at all. What will 2009 teach them? I shudder to think."