Let's play Thursday Morning Quarterback... What would YOU have done, or what would YOU do...

[cherokeeprogressive]

Personally, I think the podium with the Presidential Seal that gets toted around on Air Force One could be used more effectively, and I thought so when the Katrina disaster was in our faces, just to make sure we're all on the same page.

What would I have done differently, had I been in charge on the day the Deep Horizon platform exploded?

In hindsight, hindsight always being 20-20, I'd have cajoled ALL the major oil companies that do business in the United States to get involved. Privately. If that didn't work, I'd have been on TV from the Oval Office doing the same thing, and naming those who didn't JUMP at the opportunity to help by name so as to subject them to the always popular boycott. Of course, I would have notified them that in the absence of their 100 percent cooperation, that's what I'd be doing.

I'd have been on TV every day since the spew started promising any able bodied individual who could wade into waist deep water and scoop oil in buckets these things: twice the federal minimum wage, free transportation to the gulf and back home again, food, a sleeping bag, cover to sleep under, protective clothing, and bug spray for as long as it took to defend the marshes of Louisiana and points east.

I'd have been on TV every day since the spew started, offering tax breaks and future contracts to every boat owner who could tow boom, every manufacturer who could make it, and every transportation company who could get it to the gulf. I'd offer the same deal to each and every boat capable of vacuuming oil off the surface. I'd make sure they new the US Government would pay for their fuel and labor costs.

They call the podium that bears the Presidential Seal and travels with Air Force One "The Bully Pulpit". In my lifetime, which has spanned 49 years now, I see it as "The Buffy Pulpit".