Gulf Oil Spill: Conspiracy or Stupidity?

I've written so many posts about the Gulf/BP oil spill being a government conspiracy that I don't even have the time or energy to list them/link them; just type in the phrase in the search box on the blog and all of them will come up. Basically I posited (and presented admittedly shaky evidence) that Rahm Emanuel, using his contacts at BP, planned the explosion/spill - with Obama's knowledge and approval - as a way to create the crisis that would allow the Democrats to pass cap & trade legislation without the hostility that permeated their takeover of the health care industry.

But two stories have come out that have made me doubt my own conspiratorial writings. First, the extent of the spill, which now threatens to travel up the Mighty Mississippi:

This headline, 68 days after the spill began, is pretty appalling: No skimmers in sight as oil floods into Mississippi waters. The Biloxi Sun Herald shares the bad news: “A morning flight over the Mississippi Sound showed long, wide ribbons of orange-colored oil for as far as the eye could see and acres of both heavy and light sheen moving into the Sound between the barrier islands. What was missing was any sign of skimming operations from Horn Island to Pass Christian....

And why was there no skimming? From the link above:

“Admiral Allen was asked about the lack of skimmers by Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald. His response? ‘The discussions we are having with the Navy and other folks right now is the availability of skimmers that are on standby because they might be needed for a spill someplace else and how we might go about assessing the availability of those resources. ...that’s a work in progress inside the administration right now.’

So out of 2,0000 available skimmers, we have about 1% of them on the job, while the remainder are moored to the bulkhead of bureaucratic inefficiency. While the Gulf Coast dies, economically and environmentally, in D.C. they are still looking at what forms to fill out to requisition additional skimmers. That's the Obama administration for you, working night and day, "not resting" until...all proper forms are filled out in triplicate and approved.

But it gets worse - via Glenn Reynolds:

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality...

Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway....

To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn’t capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana’s marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks. . . .

Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico. . . .

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer — but only partly. Because the U.S. didn’t want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out....

And thus my doubts about the myriad of conspiracy theories that are out there (many of which are mine). Once Obama had made his case for cap and trade, wouldn't a speedy cleanup have proven his ability to be the "master of the crisis"? If it were a conspiracy, and closely planned out, would it not have made most sense for Obama to rescue us (with Dutch help) at the brink of disaster, and them warn a shaken America that without "cap and trade", he might not be able to save us next time?

Maybe I've mistaken stupidity for genius (like most Obama voters, and members of the media, I reckon). Maybe Obama and Slow Joe "Smartass" Biden really don't have a clue, and have delegated the entire cleanup to understudies, who - out of fear of losing their own jobs, or out of ideological allegiance with labor unions, environmentalists, socialists, and bureaucrats - are allowing the Gulf to be poisoned rather than push the paperwork aside and actually act.

And perhaps that's the problem with electing and appointing technocrats. They are great at policy discussions and position papers, but most of them have never actually, you know...done anything. In their entire frickin' lives.

Can you imagine how a President/Vice-President Palin would have handled this? One highly doubts we would be still be waiting for form 1713A to be filled out and approved with three signatures before a skimmer could be released....not that we would have need it. One glare from Sarah and the oil would have retreated back into the bowels of the Earth...

So if this was a conspiracy, it was a poorly planned one. But that would be par for the course (excuse the pun) for just about everything this administration has touched so far.

And if it is just incompetence mixed with stupidity and a little bit of nastiness, well, we're in a lot more trouble than we currently realize.

But maybe Obama just is not as bright as advertised. And maybe he simply got a "Dutch fleet" confused with a "Dutch rudder"....
(warning: link may not be safe for work!)