Monday, May 24, 2010

Let Me See If I've Got This Straight. . .

Sarah "Drill Me, Baby, Drill Me" Palin on the Obama Administration's reaction to the BP Oil spill:
(source)

http://www.celebrity-pictures.ca/Celebrities/Sarah-Palin/Sarah-Palin-i133117-small.jpg

“There is perhaps a hesitancy I don’t know how to say this the oil companies who have so supported Obama why the media hasn’t asked if there is any connection there to President Obama to take so doggone long to dive in there and grasp the complexity and potential tragedy that we are seeing there in the Gulf…if this were President Bush or Republican who hadn’t received the support form the oil companies as Obama, the msm would be all over his case, askin’ why he didn’t get in there to make sure the regulatory agencies were getting in there to make sure the oil companies weren’t getting away with this..”


So, let me see if I've got this. . .
Big Government has not done enough in the Gulf.
There wasn't enough regulation of the oil industry.
Those are your complaints here.
Really.

The problem here is, that this is your model that the administration followed for whatever reason. No government interference, let BP solve the problem on its own, the free market solution, blah blah blah. . . this is what you and your free-market conservative brethren have been preaching since at least the 1980's. Get government out of the way, let business have free rein and the market will solve all our problems with an invisible hand job.

And this is what happens when people are stupid enough to believe in this claptrap.
http://images.stltoday.com/stltoday/resources/oilspill625may102010.jpghttp://l.yimg.com/go/news/picture/2010/g1/20100514/20100514183035152g1_183743_0.jpghttp://l.yimg.com/go/news/picture/2010/g1/20100510/20100510025320353g1_025806_0.jpg

And it's not like this is some isolated incident. Remember when they de-regulated the Savings and Loans? We got stuck with a taxpayer-funded bailout.

Remember when they de-regulated the Airlines? We got ValuJet.

Remember when California de-regulated their Electricity Market? They got rolling blackouts, and eventually Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When they de-regulated the Accounting Industry, we got Arthur Anderson helping turn Enron into a giant con game.

When they de-regulated the banks, we got another taxpayer-funded bailout.

When they stopped enforcing the regulations on Coal Mining, we got the Sago diaster in 2006, the Upper Big Branch disaster in 2010, and lots of other smaller disasters. (see: link)

And yet, you people are continuously wailing about industry being over-regulated and how we need to get big government out of the way of these poor businesses who only want to do the right thing and create jobs and blah blah blah. Of course, whenever your advice is taken, big business proves itself to be completely untrustworthy, totally irresponsible and absolutely incapable of self-regulation. But apparently, you already know that, hence your criticism of the Obama Administration's reaction to the current disaster.

So, Congratulations, Sarah Palin! You were right about something. I'm sure it was completely accidental, but you were finally right about something. The regulatory agencies should have been much much stricter about safety precautions.

It's as if you were trying to pass the ball to a teammate, and your pass was so errant that the ball accidentally went through the hoop. Don't feel bad about how it happened, just be glad you got the two points.
Maybe the expression "pulled a Homer" could be replaced by "pulled a Palin." (h/t Simpsons)