Hindsight: Would You Elect Obama If You Knew His Current Response to BP Oil Leak?

reply to post by indigothefish

to answer your question might send this thread off topic, as there are numerous points i could outline in regard to my personal opinion on his decision making during this leak, but i were to say something to satisfy you it would have to be that when he asked BP to use a less toxic dispersant and BP just said "no" i would like a president that doesn't just stop there

Does the US President have any authority to demand BP not to use this in international waters???

I don't think he does...so what would you have liked him to do?

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


i will answer your questions

will you contribute to my original post?

are you satisfied with Obama's response to the oil leak, and would you vote him into office if you knew he would make the decisions he is making now concerning the oil leak?

now, to answer your question i'd like you to understand that regardless of what waters and nations an event occurs, all waters and nations are connected on planet earth

just because international waters don't belong to a country doesn't mean you can pollute them!

i would have liked Obama to handle the situation himself.. when BP showed they were using the most toxic of chemical dispersants, and using tactics to sink the oil and hide it, rather than let it float on the surface and collect it ( the method used by the rest of the world, effectively ) and Obama asked them to use a less toxic dispersant and they said "NO", i would like Obama to have had called BP out of the gulf and enlisted the National Coast Gaurd as well as an EPA and other enviromental agencies, a volunteer recruited source, as well as any other source of reliable american trustworthy workers out there to solve the gulf problem

when BP showed they were incapable of solving the problem to Obama, and proved they were interested in financial gains, rather than saving the gulf, Obama should have declared them unfit to their duties and taken control, i would have liked that

now will you answer my OP questions?

[edit on 7/5/2010 by indigothefish]

[edit on 7/5/2010 by indigothefish]

ASSUME that authority.

That's what I'd like him to do. Not just act like he was powerless because BP was in international territory.

Heck if that's the case, maybe someone will just go to the moon and blow it up.

IF the president of the USA doesn't have the authority to tell BP they can't ruin our coastline and kill our sea creatures and food supply, then his butt needs to assume some authority someplace....at the UN or somewhere.

Oh he should just take no for an answer....maybe in this case, he needs to take some clues from Israel about how to handle stuff he doesn't like in international waters close to them.

He needs to grow a pair.

reply to post by indigothefish

are you satisfied with Obama's response to the oil leak, and would you vote him into office if you knew he would make the decisions he is making now concerning the oil leak?

Yes...I would have...because right now I haven't seen anyone come up with any relevant additional informationt that Obama should have acted upon.

Hence...my question to you...what else should he have done? If you give me some food for thought, perhaps I would change my mind. Although you would have to also be able to tell me exactly what McCain/Palin would of done in response to this disaster.

now, to answer your question i'd like you to understand that regardless of what waters and nations an event occurs, all waters and nations are connected on planet earth

just because international waters don't belong to a country doesn't mean you can pollute them!

I do understand that...but we are working in reality and with man-made laws...not some idealistic "we are all connected" fantasy.

Obama has no authority to stop them from poluting them...by your logic he should be able to go tell some boat off the coast of Africa what to do because the water is connected to the United States.

So specifically...what would you have wanted him to do to force them to stop using the dispersent???

Originally posted by indigothefish
If you could travel back to the time of Obama's running for office, with the current knowledge of everything he is and isn't doing in response to the gulf oil leak, would you still vote for him?

Yes, I would and here's why.

People seem to think that the president of the US is some sort of king or holds the power to make things happen and that's not true. He is impotent as regards the real goings on in this country, especially where big business and their money is concerned.

In reality, there are many people FAR above Obama in power and control. We don't know their names, but they are the ones who hold the strings and make things happen.

NO MATTER WHO was in the position of POTUS, it wouldn't make a BIT of difference because the office doesn't have the power it once had and no president could have done anything differently.

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


thank you for your opinions on the original post's questions

i see you are satisfied with obama's response and see no further way he could make the situation better

i, on the other hand, would argue that much could be done to help the situation, as well as i would also argue that BP is interested in financial gains rather than solving the problem and having our ecosystem and human factors in their best interest

i look foward to other opinions, as i am gathering information on such regarding ATS as a whole

[edit on 7/5/2010 by indigothefish]

reply to post by OutKast Searcher



Actually youre wrong, it was an Obama thing, he PERSONALLY turned the other countries offers away when they offered their help, and he chose NOT to repeal the Jones act , which he could have done with an executive order, like BUSH did with Katrina.......AND he could have done it within DAYS of the disaster.....

So this "it wasnt an Obama thing" is highly inaccurate......

Fail......he had decisions he could have made that would have done a LOT of damage control

[edit on 5-7-2010 by ManBehindTheMask]

Yes, I would vote for Obama again. I think he is doing as much as is humanly possible under the circumstances. The truth is NOBODY knows just what to do with the oil spill, and everyone is pretty much forced to depend on BP to come up with some solutions. Obama has personally called together some of the country's best scientists and engineers to work on a solution and at this point they are stymied.

As Benevolent Heretic has said, presidents don't rule by divine decree. He has to depend on the cooperation of Congress, including Senator Barton, who actually APOLOGIZED to BP because Obama demanded and got billions of dollars to help reimburse the victims of this disaster.

Just consider how much worse the Bush administration would have been if he had to deal with this crisis. The ineffectiveness of BP in even knowing what to do about the spill is largely the fault of the Bush and earlier Republican presidencies, because they are the ones who took off regulation after regulation which would hold the oil companies to a higher standard and demanded more responsibility for their mistakes. In addition they allowed the remaining regulatory agencies to form a "one hand washes the other," cozy relationship with the oil companies.

Thus far, Obama has taken a "hands on" approach to the crisis and personally overseen much of the clean-up effort. Because he cannot be everywhere all the time, and also has the rest of the country to run, he has had to delegate some responsibilities to government agencies and private businesses who have sometimes been imperfect in their judgments. Obama has also made some faulty calls, but in my opinion no more than any other president, or human being, might make.

I would personally give Obama an A on his performance.

[edit on 8-7-2010 by Sestias]

I see no difference between either party. They both obey "not us". I didn't want McCain because no matter how "Maverick" he is, he is still bought & paid for. The same with Obama. What we are doing to the people in Iraq & Afghanistan is "not right". What we are doing to the Southern States is not right.
To those praising Obama - the second BP try with their tower to cap the oil worked. They got their valves frozen and couldn't get the oil out so they let the oil flow again with Obama's blessing. You probably watch the big 4 for your news.