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How BP and the Obama Adminis- Tration Have Been Joined at The Tells the Facts and Names the Names july 1-31, 2010 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair vol. 17, no. 13 Three Tributes to The Gulf Catastrophe, continued Ben Sonnenberg How BP and the Obama Adminis- Farewell to a Friend tration have been Joined at the Hip By Alexander Cockburn en Sonnenberg died on June 26, at By Jeffrey St. Clair the age of 73, and with his passing CounterPunch has lost its long- y the morning of May 24, the public voices speaking for the adminis- Btime counselor. The world has lost a true tide had turned against President tration. No one seemed to be in control. humanist, in the Renaissance heft of that Barack Obama in the Gulf crisis. There were discordant accounts of the word, one in whom refinement of taste, BWeeks of indecision at the White House severity of the spill between the EPA and wideness of culture mingled with politi- and the Interior Department had shifted the Interior Department. Agencies were cal passion. I mourn a very close friend. the balance of blame. BP was no longer intruding on each other’s terrain. His greatest literary achievement was seen as the lone culprit. Now, the Obama So, it was decided that the adminis- Grand Street, the quarterly he founded administration was viewed by many – tration would speak with one voice, and in 1981 and edited till 1990, when mul- including some senior members of their that voice would be Thad Allen’s, the tiple sclerosis was far advanced and his own party – as being fully culpable for portly Coast Guard commandant who fortune somewhat depleted. His friend the ongoing disaster off the coast of had been lauded in the press as a heroic Jean Stein took the magazine over and it Louisiana. The political situation was so figure in the aftermath of Katrina. It was ran till 2004. As he put it laconically, “I dire that Rahm Emanuel called an emer- the wrong lesson to draw after a month printed only what I liked; never once did gency meeting in the Oval Office to re- of false moves. The problem wasn’t mes- I publish an editorial statement; I offered group. Huddling with Obama and Rahm sage control, but a profound bureaucratic no writers’ guidelines; and I stopped that bleak morning were Homeland lethargy that ceded almost absolute con- when I couldn’t turn the pages anymore.” Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, trol over the response to the spill to BP. As another great editor Bruce Anderson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Coast This fatal misstep came courtesy of yet of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, wrote Guard Commandant Thad Allen, cli- more bad advice from Ken Salazar, who after Ben’s death, “Grand Street under mate czar Carol Browner and, most cyni- told Obama that under the terms of the Sonnenberg was the best literary maga- cal of all, economic advisor Lawrence Oil Pollution Act of 1990, passed in the zine ever produced in this doomed coun- Summers, author of an infamous 1991 wake of the wreck of the Exxon Valdez, try. His Grand Street was readable front- memo at World Bank calling “the eco- BP was legally responsible for the clean- to-back. If you’ve never seen a Grand nomic logic behind dumping a load of up of the Gulf. Street, the last literary quarterly we’re toxic waste in the lowest wage country Salazar’s logic was perverse. He rea- going to have, hustle out to the last book […] impeccable and we should face up to soned that, by giving free rein to BP store and get yourself one and lament that.” under the cover of the Oil Pollution what is gone.” The president was pissed. In a rare Control Act, the administration could When I first came to New York in 1973, display of emotion, Obama ranted for keep its hands clean and blame any fail- I went to a couple of parties thrown by 20 straight minutes. The target of his ures in the Gulf on the oil company. This Ben’s father, Ben Sr., one of the trailblaz- anger wasn’t BP but the press. He fumed strategy blew up in the face of the ad- ers in public relations who gave elabo- that he was being unfairly portrayed ministration. It was all over once Rep. rately staged parties to advance the inter- as being remote and indifferent to the Ed Markey pressured BP into releasing ests of his various clients, at 19 Gramercy mounting crisis in the Gulf. “Hell, this the live video feeds from the remote- Park. He looked a bit like a comfort- isn’t our mess,” Obama railed. The presi- controlled submersibles, showing the ably retired Edwardian bookie in 1890s dent expressed particular contempt for brown geyser of crude erupting from the London, with enough knowingness in his Louisianan James Carville, whose nightly remains of the failed blowout preventer. glance to deliver “fair warning” to the un- barbs on CNN seemed to have found But now the administration was boxed wary. Though he publicly prided himself their mark. After two hours of debate, in to an untenable position. Instead of on never have taken a dime from either Obama’s Gulf crisis team arrived at the distancing itself from BP, the Obama Howard Hughes or the Kennedys, Ben Sr. dubious conclusion that the main prob- team, thanks to Salazar, found itself certainly milked big clients like General lem was that there were simply too many shackled to the company. Two weeks cockburn cont. on page 4 col. 2 st. clair continued on page 2 july 1-31, 2010 st clair continued From page 1 near Seven Stones reef, struck Pollard’s troversial use of the toxic dispersant after the blowout, a top Coast Guard of- Rock off the coast of Cornwall, goug- Corexit. Also noticeably absent from the ficial went so far as to praise “BP’s profes- ing a deep hole into the holds of the Obama brain trust were two other offi- sionalism” during a nationally televised ship. Over the course of the next few cials who might have contributed a more press briefing. days, oil drained into the Atlantic. Then, realistic appraisal of the deteriorating It should have been different. Within on Easter the ship itself broke in two, re- situation in the Gulf: Jane Lubchenko, hours of the explosion, the federal gov- leasing all 35 million gallons of crude oil, director of the National Oceanic and ernment should have seized control of owned by, yes, British Petroleum into Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), both the well and the cleanup operations. sea. The wreck plunged the government and Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, win- The only responsibility that should have of Harold Wilson into crisis mode. The ner of the Nobel Prize, so often invoked been left to BP was to sign checks for bil- government allowed BP to pour mil- by White House press secretary Robert lions of dollars. The authority for such a lions of gallons of an unproven and toxic Gibbs as a public assurance that the ad- takeover derives from an administrative dispersant on dark-stained waters – the ministration was on top of the situation. rule called the National Contingency chemical had been manufactured by a Each had been inexplicably exiled from Plan, which calls for the federal govern- subsidiary of the oil company. When that Obama’s inner circle. ment to take authority over hazardous proved to have little effect, the Wilson It didn’t help, of course, that in the waste releases and oil spills that pose “a early days of the disaster Obama’s of- substantial threat to the public health When Rahm Emanuel ficials opted to downplay the sever- or welfare of the United States based on ity of the oil gusher erupting out of the several factors, including the size and summoned the admin- crumpled riser pipe 5,000 feet below the character of the discharge and its prox- istration’s oil response surface of the Gulf. In the first official re- imity to human populations and sensitive marks from the administration after the environments. In such cases, the On- team to the strategy ses- explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, Scene Coordinator is authorized to direct sion in the Oval Office, Coast Guard commandant Thad Allen, all federal, state, or private response and told the press that the spill was expected recovery actions. The OSC may enlist the he didn’t send an invi- to be very minor, amounting to only the support of other federal agencies or spe- tation to Lisa Jackson, few thousands gallons of crude present cial teams.” in the mile-long pipe at the time of the The National Contingency Plan, writ- the spunky head of accident. This false information flowed ten in 1968, came in response to one the Environmental directly from BP. A few days later, after of the world’s first major oil spills and the incinerated rig had toppled and sank cleanup debacles. On March 18, 1967, Protection Agency. Why to the bottom of the Gulf, this specious the Liberian-flagged supertanker Torrey was Jackson missing? number was revised upward to a total of Canyon, taking a dangerous shortcut no more than 1,000 gallons a day. So said government called upon the Royal Air Allen, incident commander for the Gulf. Force to conduct a bombing raid on the Again, Allen had made this optimistic Torrey Canyon. The planes dropped 42 assessment based solely on information EDITORS bombs in effort to sink the ship and burn coming from BP.
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