To my mind, the administration’s basic problem is that it did not realize early enough that (1) the oil would keep spilling, because (2) BP didn’t have an effective worst-case scenario plan in place. Therefore it (3) underestimated how long this would last; and, thus, (4) didn’t jump in early enough to show that it was as on top of things as it could be. To a significant degree, these are problems of public relations, but they are also problems that stem from believing -- as most Americans did -- that BP would be able to solve this early on because there’s no technological fix that’s beyond us. Well, this one was a lot tougher than anyone thought it would be.
What the administration does control is the effort to mitigate the impact of the spill and clean up the shoreline. It should be devoting all the resources and public energy it can to this job. As for the larger issue of giving a sense that it’s in control, the administration could do worse than take a look at the shrewd public memo David Gergen offered on the CNN website. Gergen, an adviser to Republican and Democratic presidents and now a CNN commentator, argues that the “whole country now has a keen interest in the White House now taking full command” and that “the government needs to summon all the big oil and drilling companies to the White House on an emergency basis and seek faster answers.” Here are the first eight planks of the Gergen plan:
-Set up a daily command center in Washington where a presidentially appointed leader runs the show, calls the shots, coordinates the overall effort, briefs the president and briefs the country.To be perfectly honest, I have no idea whether all this would work, either in getting the problem solved, or even as a public relations exercise. The administration is almost certainly already doing some of these -- for example, consulting with other oil companies to get their expertise. But many of the ideas make sense.
-Have two deputies, one to direct the leak-stoppage and the other to direct the clean-up. Ex-CEOs and generals would be excellent candidates.
-Summon all the major oil and drilling companies to the White House for emergency efforts to get the hole plugged.
-Get BP out of the picture for clean-up; just send it the bill. If it is still needed for hole-plugging, okay, but ensure that it answers every day to directions from the government. If BP needs new internal leadership, figure out how to get that done.
-Employ the U.S. military for organizational coordination and where needed, for anything else such as clean-up.
-Make more aggressive efforts to tap the best minds in the world for help.
-Provide the country with the kind of daily briefings that the military has mastered for wartime -- bring in people who are smart, straight and tough.
-Ensure that economic assistance is provided to families, small businesses and communities that need it with dispatch and generosity
There are competing risks here. One is that the administration will be pretending to be able to control events that it can’t control. But the other risk is that the president and his aides look helpless. The second is the greater risk, and Gergen has provided Obama with the rough draft of a plan. It’s as good a place as any to start the debate over what should be done next.
By E.J. Dionne For The Washington Post