Poor Leadership by Obama Over Gulf Oil Disaster

President Obama has shown extremely poor leadership over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

Following are his failures:

Failed to understand the extent and seriousness of the problem.

Failed to act with a sense of urgency.

Attacked the oil company, BP, instead of working with them to find a solution.

Attacked his critics, thereby detracting from the mission to solve the problem.

Made it a political issue, instead of a non partisan one.

Organizational efforts appear totally absent. No one is in charge.

Allows Eric Holder to bring suit against BP that will only cause distractions when vital, undivided, concentrated effort is needed by BP and all involved to solve the problem. A huge error. Lawsuits, if deserved, should be brought after, not during the crisis.

What he should have done (and should do):

Meet immediately with the governors of the Gulf border states, in a non partisan manner, in order to LISTEN and jointly develop a plan.

Hold an urgent conference with top experts in the related fields that could help, those who have the expertise in oceanography, drilling, related technical and engineering specialities, etc. From this group, and working with the governors, develop an action plan that can be implemented immediately. This action plan should be comprised of two parts:

1) Action to prevent the oil from reaching border state shores with a sense of urgency.

2) Action to plug and stop the massive oil leaking.

Appoint a small and visible team with a competent lead person representing the federal government. The team should include a representative of the governors of each of the Gulf bordering states; a representative from BP; and a representative from the scientific / engineering expert committee. This team should be charged with full authority to act in order to do what is necessary to solve the problem, devoid of politics. They should be charged with a sense of urgency. They should keep the American public fully informed on the progress through excellent communication.

Provide the full federal resources in order to back up these plans.

Make every effort to keep the solution totally non partisan.

Back off everybody in federal government (Holder, etc.) that will detract from the concentrated urgency required to solve the problem...until AFTER the problem is solved.

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This is the type of leadership that is needed in order to give the best probability of solving the problem, and the type of leadership that the border states and America deserve.