$20 billion, bland speeches & man-eating pterodactyls

by: Erica Brody

Thu Jun 17, 2010 at 10:35:56 AM EDT

Gail Collins tends to make my lips curl up around the edges (be it smile or smirk), even when she's pointing out sad, sad things -- like missed opportunities in the midst of tragedy or disaster.

In this morning's column, a breakdown of the prezzie's Tuesday-night speech, Collins writes about her extreme disappointment at the utter lack of  an all-out declaration of war on the oil companies.

Definitely worth a read, especially with this lead -- or if the speech left you hungering for something less bland with clearer action lines and more forceful vision (oh, and fixes -- for the oil spewing, lax regulations,  livelihoods, coastline, etc.):

On Monday night in Ohio, a 62-foot-tall statue of Jesus got hit by lightning and burned to the ground. (The adult bookstore across the street was unscathed.) Less than 12 hours later, Gen. David Petraeus — who is not God, although certain members of Congress have been known to worship at his altar — semifainted at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Then Bravo announced that the White House gate-crashers were getting a TV show. Al and Tipper remained in Splitsville. And the oil kept on spilling.

So you sort of knew from the portents that President Obama’s big Oval Office speech was not going to be a terrific game-changer. The way things had been going, the president was lucky that a man-eating pterodactyl didn’t come crashing through the window during his opening remarks.

More after the jump.

Still, it was a disappointment. I was hoping for a call to arms, a national mission as great as the environmental disaster that inspired it. After the terrorist attack, George W. Bush could have called the country to a grand, important new undertaking in which everyone sacrificed personal or regional advantage for the common good. The fact that he only told us to go shopping was the one unforgivable sin of his administration.

O.K., also attacking the wrong country. And creating the deficit. But I digress.

All we got from President Obama was a vague call for some sort of new energy policy. Plus a Gulf Coast Restoration Plan, an oil spill study commission, a reminder that the secretary of energy won a Nobel Prize in physics and 17 references to God, prayer, blessings or faith.

We wanted him to declare war on the oil companies! Every day it becomes clearer that these guys are even more feckless than we imagined. At the ritual Congressional lashing of C.E.O.’s this week, we learned that none of the major oil companies have any idea how to control a spill like this, and that their faux plans for handling one in the gulf were made up of boilerplate so undigested that several had sections on protecting walruses — mammals that have not been seen in the area since the Ice Age. “It’s unfortunate that walruses were included,” admitted Exxon Mobil’s chief.

The way things have been going, you can’t be too careful. If the portents keep piling up, it’s easy to envision a headline like: “Lone Tourist in Pensacola Eaten by Visiting Walrus Herd.”

Obama held back on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, he and the BP chairman announced that the company — which is, in theory, only liable for $75 million in economic damage payments — was forgoing its dividend and setting up a $20 billion fund to compensate the workers and businesses who have been harmed by the spill.

In the negotiations, Obama said, he had stressed that for many of the small business owners, families and fishing crews “this is not a matter of dollars and cents, that a lot of these folks don’t have a cushion.” His brief remarks were more effective than his 18-minute effort the night before, particularly when coupled with all that cash.