Smudge Martens
Well, let’s start with the fact that one was an act of God. The other was an act of Man. Um, let’s see, what else? Oh, yeah, the licensing and regulation all happened on Bush’s watch and the officials in charge were Bush appointees who never met an oil company they didn’t like. Then there was the erosion of safety procedures, all given the wink-wink, nudge-nudge by Bush lackeys. We could sit here all day listing reasons that lay the blame right at the door of the Bush Administration for creating the conditions that led to this.

The fact is, and it is a fact, that Republican policies directly led to this disaster, which could have been prevented, unlike a hurricane. And since Righties are such Fed-haters, when did it become the Federal Government’s job to clean up Corporate F#*k ups?

Cleaning up while the spigot is still going full blast; one step forward, two steps back. Plus watching that admiral somebody or other yesterday on all the news channels had me realizing suddenly that the gov’mint boys and girls and the BP’ers have no intention of shutting this down until they have the other well in place and taking oil from the deposit. Then the admiral said that they had instructed BP to drill 2 wells!. Wow! I’m sure BP loves that order, in fact I bet BP gave it to the Admiral in the first place. They know if they shut this gusher down they will not be allowed to drill there anymore and the oil field will be at issue for years to come. If they have wells in place that have then shut down the gusher, then they will be heroes and excused and go on taking oil and who cares how much it costs then because this oil field is huge and under high pressure and will make them richer than before…and us poorer than ever now that the Gulf of Mexico is a ruined dystopia…but hey…a few people will be rich and ain’t that all that matters in the end? Ain’t that what life is for anyway…salvation through wealth?

Once Katrina was in the Gulf of Mexico the hurricane could not be stopped.
Three Miles Island and Horizon have in common that these disasters might have been prevented.
No amount of hot-air bullshit by Mr. Salazar can whitewash his failure to prevent Horizon.
The cleanup will not require an all-star team. It requires funding, workers, and equipment.

“How should the inevitability of deep water oil drilling disasters be approached?”

By banning drilling completely.
If the West Coast can be protected why should any coast not be?

  Nationalize the oil.
Why should these foreign companies profit through our natural resources and put our environment at great risk?

  Get big corporations off our back.

re: Keith B.

Thanks for the input and many valid points. By your description Katrina was a failure of not only the Bush administration, but also the previous administrations and the federal government collectively. It makes sense that since natural disasters occur aperiodically it is the responsibility of the federal government to create an infrastructure and effective incident response system.

How should the inevitability of deep water oil drilling disasters be approached?

Let’s just hope they assemble the all-starts faster when an asteroid is hurtling towards earth…

Don’t forget to send BP the big, fat, whoppin’ bill replete with a big markup equivalent to what they put on gasoline. Hey, it’s our free enterprise system. And whenever there is a choice to do it faster at more cost or to save money by going slowly opt for the fast way. After all, BP is paying.

Smudge, The big difference between Katrina and the ‘BP Spill’ is that the Katrina
disaster was caused by the government, or government agencies (USACoE),
through poor engineering/cost-cutting of levies and such; The Government
was/is/should be responsible for cleanup, repair, and future prevention. 
The BP Spill was caused by BP, through poor engineering and cost-cutting
decisions.  BP is, or should be responsible for cleanup, repair, and prevention. 
What happens if BP is incompetent/unwilling/not capable of cleanup, repair,
etc?  Good question…BP will probably try to completely walk away from
responsibility for the cleanup. 
Certain people will blame whoever is president for whatever happens during
that presidents term.  If the BP Spill turns out as bad as it seems, Obama/the
Admin will get hung with at least a certain amount of blame.  If Obama/Admin
wants to come out of this politically clean, there’ll have to be convictions, fines,
and jail time for BP types. 
Of course, convictions won’t fix the oil-soaked wetlands and killed animals and
plants.

Look it’s just a little Gulf. The All Stars will certainly save the Atlantic. I mean after all the Gulf Stream leads directly to Britain—can’t have that.

Someone help me out here, and I mean this sincerely.

Given that’s it’s taken an entire month to assemble an “All-Star” team, why is it unfair or inaccurate to refer to this situation as Obama’s Katrina?

Why was Bush’s response to Katrina any more lackadaisical or inept than Obama’s response to this spill?