Well, isn’t this Broderlicious?
As sinister as the jet stream of escaping oil and gas looks via the underwater camera in the gulf, Barack Obama has not yet moved into the category of the late-night patsy that Jimmy Carter became. The Iranians were more clever, or diabolical, in exploiting their hostages than the restrained BP executives or their enviro foes are in this situation.
Okay, ‘enviro foes’? Really? The only people who are pissed off at BP are environmentalists? And how exactly are these BP executives showing restraint? Restraint against what? Boring more uncappable wells a mile below the surface of the sea?
Obama keeps popping up in new settings, sounding as if he is in command, and he has refused to be confined to the White House as Carter was by the hostage crisis. His good-guy Coast Guard retired admiral has not melted under the pressure, and the BP execs we’ve seen on TV refuse to play cartoon capitalists, instead conveying the sense that they grieve over the accident.
Funny that Broder linked to BP CEO Tony Hayward making the following statement…
“We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.”
…and not to Hayward’s apology for saying that he wants his life back when he’s destroyed so many other’s lives. I mean, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal called Hayward an idiot for making that statement. He called him an idiot for saying there are other places to find shrimp. He basically mocked the man for being a cartoon capitalist. Bobby Jindal did that.
You know what else is funny. At the top of his column, I thought he was talking about Treme, Spike Lee, and Katrina instead of Nightline, Ted Koppel, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
They haven’t built a popular new television program around it — yet. No one has created a new media franchise for himself out of it. There isn’t a name for it that has become part of popular culture.
Yeah, Katrina would be the obvious and topical comparison, but that would involve invoking the name of George W. Bush in a negative way. Better to link Obama to Jimmy Carter while defending the honor of the people who caused this catastrophe.
Wank on. Wank off.
