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  Bystander-in-Chief
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ContributorScott³ 
Last EditedScott³  May 28, 2010 06:51pm
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CategoryOpinion
AuthorJohn Dickerson
News DateFriday, May 28, 2010 12:50:00 AM UTC0:0
Description"The vocabulary of oil drilling is so colorful—junk shot, top kill, poor boy degasser—that there must be a name for the trick President Obama was trying to pull off at his press conference Thursday. He was trying to take responsibility and show that his administration is in control of efforts to stop and contain the massive oil spill in the Gulf. At the same time, he had to admit that the government hasn't always been competent, lacks resources, and is only kinda sorta in charge. Whatever the term would be, it would include mud.

"In case anybody wonders, in any of your reporting, in case you were wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility," said the president in his concluding remarks. But it's responsibility with an asterisk: BP is the only entity that can solve this problem, which is like none anyone has seen before. The government can stare harder over the oil company's shoulder—order a second relief well to be drilled, tell it what kind of chemicals to use—but overall the relationship is not unlike that between a frustrated user and his computer. The federal government is stuck on the phone, and BP is tech support.

Having responsibility without control is always a horrible situation, no matter what job you hold. But Obama and his aides know it is a special gift of the presidency. The dynamic is part of what keeps the "This is Obama's Katrina" story line alive, and the sense of confusion that dogged the Bush administration after Katrina was only heightened at the press conference when Obama said he didn't know whether the director of the Minerals Management Service had been fired or had resigned."
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