I’ve noted before that a big part of the fix President Obama is in regarding the Deepwater Horizon spill is of his own making. He has promised that, under him, government can accomplish anything, and people are now discovering that it’s not even close to true. But bad habits die hard, and I don’t think this will help any:
Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness.
In the United States, the president can’t give orders to the chairman of a private company. I’m pretty sure that Obama understands that, but I guess he thinks that his listeners do not.
Perhaps he means by this that his administration will go to court to force BP to put the necessary money into escrow. But “I will inform him that I will initiate a lengthy legal battle to force him to set aside”, despite being more accurate, doesn’t quite have the ring of executive command that “I will inform him that he is to set aside” has.
The irony of this is that his speech was lacking in executive command in areas that the president actually could plausibly command. (Waiving the Jones Act, for example.) His cleanup plan is a czar and a panel. But I suppose his advisors thought that promising real action was risky, and he should focus on directing fire and brimstone toward BP.
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