Why Isn't President Obama Sealing The Oil Well Leak On His Own?

Remember back when the financial crisis hit and John McCain was all, “We should suspend our presidential campaigns” and Barack Obama was like, “Look, presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time… Let’s not be jackasses about this,” and even some of the people who were McCain supporters were thinking, “You know what, dude totally has a point, especially with all the messes whoever wins is going to have to face.” Do you? I’m pretty sure I remember that. But it seems more and more like a dream.

If President Obama doesn’t make the oil spill in Louisiana his sole priority, goes the current conventional wisdom, he’s toast. Important foreign trips? Blow ’em off! Working on unemployment? Forget about it! Climate change bill? Climate change this. It’s got to be non-stop oil spill action, or else.

“This has hijacked his entire legislative agenda,” said Douglas Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who has written about Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was consumed by the Iran hostage crisis. “The White House felt they were on a roll. They were looking to be a new New Deal or new Great Society and they were just getting momentum going. Something this awful has sidetracked the agenda.”

Sara Taylor Fagen, White House political director under President George W. Bush, said the failure to contain the spill would make it hard for Mr. Obama to accomplish anything this year. “He’ll likely be managing the fallout for years to come,” she said. “Not until his re-election campaign will he have an opportunity to press reset.”

(Ah, yes, the Carter comparison. “When commentators start invoking Carter, that is very bad news indeed,” says Howard Kurtz. That may be so, but commentators have been invoking Carter since the primaries, at least. Until all the members of the commentariat who can remember the Carter administration die off, every Democratic president will have Carter invoked against him. It’s just the way things work. It happened to Clinton, it’s happening to Obama, it will happen to whoever comes next, assuming we don’t wind up voting for an endless string of Tea Party presidents until we finally nuke ourselves out of existence. You know when Democratic presidents stop getting Jimmy Cartered? When they get re-elected. So Obama’s got about another two years of this.)

Anyway, look: There is plenty to be angry about the way the oil spill has been handled. If it makes you feel better to have the President scream and shout and display anger, I can understand that. I’d actually prefer that he use this as an opportunity to reform our lax regulatory processes across the board-I was actually thinking that the first big disaster we’d face would have something to do with a nationwide outbreak of devastating food-borne illness, but I guess that’s why you never bet against oil-and focus the country on our need for cleaner and more sustainable resources, but I’m down with a show of anger if that will shut up the Maureen Dowds (remember when she called him Obambi? Now she wants him to be Mr. Emotional.) who are clamoring for a fit of rage. But it would be absolutely ludicrous if the administration were to stop all the other important work that needs to be done so that the President can show up in Louisiana and rip out Tony Hayward’s jugular with his teeth. (Satisfying, sure, but ludicrous.) The guy’s got a TON of stuff on his plate. Can we cut him a little slack and not pretend that he has to go in, Harrison Ford-style, and take care of it personally?

Presidents do have to handle more than one thing at a time. Let’s allow the guy to do that. (Although maybe hanging out with Paul McCartney and Jerry Seinfeld is one of those things that should be rescheduled. Just a thought.)