There’s a famous ad campaign for Rolling Stone Magazine that compared “reality” to “perception.” Remember that when you compare the perception and reality of the Obama administration’s reaction to the Gulf oil blow out.
Here’s the New York Times (yes, believe it or not, the New York Times) damning the President and his cohorts:
…it takes the administration more than a week to really get moving.
The timetable is damning. The blowout occurred on April 20. In short order, fire broke out on the rig, taking 11 lives, the rig collapsed and oil began leaking at a rate of 40,000 gallons a day. BP tried but failed to plug the well. Even so, BP appears to have remained confident that it could handle the situation with private resources (as did the administration) until Wednesday night, when, at a hastily called news conference, the Coast Guard quintupled its estimate of the leak to 5,000 barrels, or more than 200,000 gallons a day.
Only then did the administration move into high gear.
That’s reality. But the perception the Obama administration would like you to have is somewhat different:
…that’s why the federal government has launched and coordinated an all-hands-on-deck, relentless response to this crisis from day one.
– President Obama, May 2nd
And if that “Day One” phrase was good enough for the President, it’s good enough for the rest of his administration, damn it:
We had DOD resources there from day one. This was a situation that was treated as a possible catastrophic failure from, from day one…And so the physical response on the ground has been, from, from day one, as if this could be a catastrophic failure.
– Janet Napolitano, Meet the Press, May 2nd
And if Day One is good enough to say once, it’s good enough to say twice:
And, in fact, the plain fact of the matter is, is that from day one the Coast Guard has been treating this as an incident, a spill that could ultimately reach shore….Indeed, indeed. And if I might add, that’s exactly why from day one they were already pre-deploying vessels and booms and getting ready in case the scenario continued to worsen.
– Janet Napolitano, CNN’s State of the Union, May 2nd
Go for the trifecta, Janet:
The administration responded all hands on deck from day one.
– Janet Napolitano, Fox News Sunday, May 2nd
“Day One” must have focus grouped well, because it’s quickly become the administration’s phrase of the day:
From day one, there has been the assumption here on the worst-case scenario.
– Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, CNN’s State of the Union, May 2nd
“Day One” became part of the administration’s entourage, going everywhere with them:
You know, from day one we’ve been preparing for the worst-case scenario…The president has directed from day one that we spare nothing at all in terms of the effort to prevent damage onshore as well as taking whatever other actions taking place.
– Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Meet the Press, May 2nd
Day One. Day One. Day One. Repeat until it becomes believable:
The most important thing is from Day One we stood corralling resources from a worst-case scenario working back.
– Coast Guard Admiral Mary Landry, May 1st
Day One. As in, “This administration has been a disaster from Day One.”
Source: New York Times, VerumSerum.com
