Tag Archives: oil spill
Transparency Time for White House
BY RON BONJEAN
Just like the BP camera has allowed us to watch millions of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico after the collapse of the “Deep Horizon” oil rig, President Obama should install an Oval Office camera or “Oval Cam” in the White House after the botched handling of Rep. Joe Sestak’s job offer. [See who contributes to Sestak.]
The American people are starving for transparency. Time and again, they have been lied to or misled by government and private institutions. Politicians who offer it willingly are praised while those that reject it or begrudgingly accept it are scorned. Transparency demonstrates that leaders and companies are on the level. It means as President Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.” BP quickly learned that once the camera broadcast the oil leak to millions of people in real time, the company can’t turn it off without sparking conspiratorial outrage.
Victims and Villains: A Dangerous Game
BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
The oil spill catastrophe has set off a new round of finger pointing. Oil company executives were crawling over each other a week ago to place blame on each other.
And, the President is doing what he does extremely well, branding oil company executives as villains and the rest of us as victims of their villainous behavior.
Who knows where the blame will ultimately lie. There will be plenty to go around.
I have no interest in, or sympathy for, British Petroleum. They ought to pay out of the wazzoo.
My concern is with the politics of the blame game, especially during these times when nerves are shot, the public nerves are on edge already and people are just looking for an excuse to get mad. Also of concern is the more profound impact on the civility of our political dialogue.
Throughout the campaign, while candidate Obama was promising to be a healer and a uniter, he was engaged in a sophisticated strategy to divide, to create victims and villains in American politics, identifying for his supporters at whom they should be mad and for whom they should show pity. That is par for the course in political campaigns. But to my surprise, the strategy was intensified after he became President. Over the past two years he has created the false imagery of a society in which you’re either a victim or a villain. In a constant display of high dexterity finger pointing he has made villains of lobbyists, Wall Street firms, doctors, insurance companies, auto executives, talk radio celebrities, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Fox News, bankers, tea partiers, Republicans, conservatives, gun owners, the entire state of Arizona, and now, for a repeat performance, oil company executives.