Obama Staffer on Oil Spill: "uglier than we had hoped'

Two and a half months now and there is finally a little good news for the Gulf Coast.  It seems that BP may actually have the leak stopped ahead of schedule.  Well, there schedule anyway.  That was much needed news for a company that may be on it's last legs both from a public relations standpoint and from a financial one.  Just this past week BP clean up crews were caught naught cleaning beaches but rather dumping sand on top of the oil.  This action is something ecologist say is far worse for the area.  BP is like that college buddy that was always getting caught cheating on his girlfriends.  No matter how badly things turned out and how many times he got caught he just couldn't play be the rules.

Then there is the President.  For months now we here on the Gulf Coast have struggled to understand why the administration never did any of the things they are supposed to do like requisition US Navy skimmers and declare the Gulf a national disaster area.  It has also been confusing that the government continues to block all efforts by those who are trying to bring the effects of the spill under control.  We've seen the frustration from civic leaders in Gulf States as the EPA blocks them from building protective berms or the Coast Guard shuts down barges using giant vacuums to clean up oil because they were missing a life jacket or fire extinguisher.  Here's a thought, Coast Guard, if these boats are lacking sufficient safety equipment just give them yours then you can go get more to bring your boat up to spec.

Every poll out there shows that most Americans realize that the federal government's handling of the Gulf Oil Spill has left something to be desired.  Let's be blunt, the federal government's actions since April 20th have been criminal.  The question really has never been whether the Obama administration was doing a good job or not but rather has it's total mishandling of the Oil Spill been the result of an scientifically unfounded crusade to "save the earth" or from sheer incompetence.  Has the government acted with unbridled evil or pure stupidity?

Well we may have inadvertently gotten our answer.  This weekend Dr. Roger Helm a Division Chief with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior's leading scientist studying the spill admitted that the government's actions may have in fact been because of a nefarious agenda saying, "The distribution of the oil, it's bigger and uglier than we had hoped."  Hoped? You hoped the Gulf Oil Spill would be bad?  Helm added, "The possibility of having significant changes in the food chain, over some period of time, is very real. The possibility of marshes disappearing . . . is very real."  Apparently they can mark those off the President's "to do" list.



Now surely it is possible that Dr. Helm simply made a poor choice of wording.  It happens.  It's happened to me.  But it is just as likely, if not more so, that it was a Freudian slip.  You can read more of Washington Post contributor David A. Fahrenthold's interview with Roger Helm by clicking HERE.
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