Tired: Dems Attempt to Blame Cheney for Oil Spill

The Hill reports the latest attempt by the Democrats to deflect the outrage of the American people by blame shifting the cause of the Gulf oil spill disaster to former VP Dick Cheney and the Bush administration:

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee traded partisan blows Tuesday over whether the Obama administration or the former Bush administration deserves more blame for the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Senior Democrats on the panel — Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) — used a hearing on the Interior Department’s role to trace the disaster back to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy policy task force.

Waxman said that task force — which was assembled early in the Bush administration — set the stage for policies that pushed drilling at the expense of tough safety oversight of rigs and review of environmental risks.

“The cop on the beat was off-duty for nearly a decade and this gave rise to a dangerous culture of permissiveness,” Waxman said. “In many ways this history begins with Vice President Cheney’s secretive energy task force.”

Waxman said that under the Bush-era Interior Department, “the priority was more drilling first and safety second,” although he added that the current administration was also too hands-off before the spill.

Seriously? Waxman and Markey obviously did not have access to this outstanding timeline and writeup by Kevin McCullough, which details the events dating back to February 13, 2010:

It seems incomprehensible that the president and other members of the administration still have jobs when it is now being reported that the federal government was apprised by BP on February 13 that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil and natural gas into the ocean floor.

In fact, according to documents in the administration’s possession, BP was fighting large cracks at the base of the well for roughly ten days in early February.

Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig’s fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, “They damn near blew up the rig.”

It’s also now being reported that BP was asking for the administration’s help on this matter long before the deadly accident and the now gushing well of tar.

Which leads me to some questions for the president. If I were in front row of reporters in the White House briefing room, here’s what I’d like to know:

1. It appears, Mr. President, that you were informed by BP about problems on Deepwater Horizon on February 13 and the company wanted your help. What did you say?

2. Given this new revelation, Mr. President, how can you can sleep at night knowing that your inaction cost the lives of eleven men in Louisiana?

3. Did you inform the victims’ families about these facts when you invited them to the White House for last month’s photo op?

4. You’ve said, Mr. President, time and again, that the buck stops with you. Doesn’t that statement seem like something bordering on propaganda when you follow it up with what appears to be a false sense of outrage by telling Matt Lauer that you’re looking for rear ends to kick?

5. Does the buck stop with you… or not?

6. Are you going to insist that Mr. Salazar step down from his post in disgrace and shame?

7. Will you hold another prime time television press conference and tell the entire truth to the American people? — These would be the actions of a man who says that the buck “stops” with him.

8. I know when this news was breaking midday on Saturday about the latest BP developments that you and the Vice President were out on the golf course. Was it 39th or 40th time you’ve played a round in 18 months? (Just for a point of reference President Bush played golf 24 times in eight years.) Never mind, your priorities are for you to decide. At least until election night…

The Democrats are truly going to have to stop the childish blame-shifting and whining about the Bush administration. It’s been almost 20 months, or 2 years, since Bush was in office. The American people don’t want any more finger pointing, they want action–swift, efficient, and effective–especially when pertaining to the Gulf and the Americans effected by the oil spill.

But, the Democrats are still trying to figure who to blame so Obama can go kick their ass, when in reality, they should be kicking their own asses due to their negligence of the events of dating back to February 13, 2010.

Cartoon credit: TobyToons