Louisiana: It’s Our Butt That’s Getting Kicked!

“President Barack Obama says his talks with Gulf fishermen and oil spill experts are not an academic exercise. They're so I know whose (bleep) to kick." Fox News June 8, 2010

In less than twenty minutes I can reach the areas affected by the oil gushing from the BP deep water drill site in the Gulf. We here in St. Bernard Parish will feel the brunt of this disaster for decades to come. Barack Obama’s recent address from the Oval Office offers little consolation.

When residents of St. Bernard Parish and other low lying parishes are questioned about Mr. Obama’s comments the responses are anything but glowing. Most are saying it was all rhetoric but without any specifics or practical and immediate help.

We are proud of our Governor Jindal’s tireless efforts to curb the siege of oil slithering toward and smothering our coastline. We are enraged that the US Coastguard debated the use of berms while the crude blanketed our coasts. We are incensed that Dutch boats were ignored for the Jones Act which could have been temporarily suspended by a simple Presidential order and the day could have been saved.

No one in Louisiana can understand why Obama didn’t even try to call the CEO of BP for over fifty days. We heard him say that his top man is a recipient of a Nobel Prize but so is the President. His award was completely unearned so we are not likely to take comfort from the fact that his top scientist has one too.

Latest reports are saying that over 60,000 barrels of crude are blasting into the Gulf waters every day. Individuals, organizations and other corporations have lined up to offer their help to cap the well and help with the cleanup; to date almost all have remained on the sidelines, ignored or shunned while we wait for a Nobel prize winner to get on with it.

It is time for President Obama to recognize that the campaigning is over. It is time for him to see that ideologies make poor substitutes for pragmatic and useful solutions to our problems. It is time for Mr. Obama to see that this is not a crisis that he can save from going to waste but rather it is a crisis that is wasting Louisiana while he is golfing, partying and wasting time. It is time to be cooperative with others to save one of the richest resources of our nation, the State of Louisiana.

Our Governor has made no speeches from his plush office in Baton Rouge but has been seen laboring day and night feet shod with steel toed boots and surrounded with top officials and engineers who are resting little. To Louisianans you are more the golfing, partying ‘Procrastinator in Chief’ but for the moment in Louisiana Bobby Jindal and those with him are our heroes.

As we all watch with baited breath I will be checking beautiful Bayou Bienvenue that separates New Orleans from St. Bernard to see if the telltale reddish black slick is creeping into our rich fishing, crabbing and craw fishing waters. The Bayou is about two miles from my house and from it you can see the Army Corps’ new hurricane barrier being erected. Hurricanes; there’s the next worry. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

As Louisianans hold their breaths waiting for some well directed help with full cooperation of all those who can help, we will have to take our best advice from the Lord himself who said “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Mt 6:34

In the mean time we urge the President to stop using this disaster to further strengthen the powers of the EPA, cap and trade, or the agenda of a few extreme environmentalist groups. Politicizing this disaster is not worthy of our great state and no one here cares too much about Nobel prizes at this critical juncture in our history.