As President Obama prepares for a Sunday morning visit to the gulf coastline, where a massive oil spill threatens environmental devastation, his administration faces the politically tricky task of appearing in control of the response while avoiding the blame.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 proved how debilitating a disaster can be for a presidency if the public perceives that the administration did too little -- either before the incident or after -- to protect people, the environment or the economy.
The gulf oil spill is no Katrina, in which 1,836 people died amid the near total devastation of one of America's great cities. In the case of the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 11 people perished, but the worst impact of the oil on animals and shorelines have yet to be fully felt.
Still, the Obama administration woke to the political dangers of the crisis Wednesday night, as oil company executives and government agencies in the gulf informed them of the changing nature of the accident. What had appeared at first to be a tragic but limited incident could grow to become one of the worst ecological disasters on the seas if the oil keeps leaking.
That change of circumstance prompted a furious shift in gears at the White House, which began informing reporters of the president's personal attention late Wednesday, as he returned to Washington from a two-day trip to the Midwest. On Thursday, the government's most senior officials held a high-profile news conference at the White House to communicate that the government was fully on the case.
But nothing says "I'm on the case" like a personal visit from the president. And so Sunday's trip, which was first discussed inside the White House on Friday morning, is a clear indication that the West Wing wants the country to see Obama at the helm of the response.
Deputy press secretary Bill Burton said the president will travel to the gulf on Sunday morning with a "very small footprint," suggesting that the White House is also aware of the downsides of such a trip.
The arrival of the president and his security entourage inevitably disrupts the activities at the scene. Some amount of pomp and circumstance is always required, which often appears jarring amid the somber work to battle the crisis. And as President George W. Bush discovered in 2005, the act of offering praise to the hard-working government employees can seem disconnected from reality if things are not going well.
And that is the problem for Obama right now: Things are not going well in the 11-day battle to contain the oil spill.
On the surface, efforts to contain the spread with booms is being hampered by rough seas and quickly changing winds. Below the surface, the problems are even more grave: Oil is continuing to gush out despite fail-safe mechanisms that were supposed to stop it, and potential solutions being considered by company executives and their government overseers have never been tried at these depths.
As a result, Obama's administration is being confronted with difficult questions about preparedness. Was the government in place quickly enough? Had regulators gone too easy on the oil company? Did high-paid lobbyists convince lawmakers and administration officials to weaken safety systems that might have prevented the crisis?
Unlike Katrina, there has been no obvious failures of government, no images to compare to the Superdome or the flooded streets of St. Bernard Parish. And unlike Katrina, there is an easy target for blame in the current oil spill: the oil giant BP, which by law is the "responsible party" and must pay for all of the costs of the cleanup.
Deputy press secretary Bill Burton said the president will travel to the gulf on Sunday morning with a "very small footprint," suggesting that the White House is also aware of the downsides of such a trip.
The arrival of the president and his security entourage inevitably disrupts the activities at the scene. Some amount of pomp and circumstance is always required, which often appears jarring amid the somber work to battle the crisis. And as President George W. Bush discovered in 2005, the act of offering praise to the hard-working government employees can seem disconnected from reality if things are not going well.
And that is the problem for Obama right now: Things are not going well in the 11-day battle to contain the oil spill.
On the surface, efforts to contain the spread with booms is being hampered by rough seas and quickly changing winds. Below the surface, the problems are even more grave: Oil is continuing to gush out despite fail-safe mechanisms that were supposed to stop it, and potential solutions being considered by company executives and their government overseers have never been tried at these depths.
As a result, Obama's administration is being confronted with difficult questions about preparedness. Was the government in place quickly enough? Had regulators gone too easy on the oil company? Did high-paid lobbyists convince lawmakers and administration officials to weaken safety systems that might have prevented the crisis?
Unlike Katrina, there has been no obvious failures of government, no images to compare to the Superdome or the flooded streets of St. Bernard Parish. And unlike Katrina, there is an easy target for blame in the current oil spill: the oil giant BP, which by law is the "responsible party" and must pay for all of the costs of the cleanup.
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