Word this morning is that BP’s top kill effort to stop the oil well leak in the Gulf has worked, at least so far. With Obama’s big photo-op just hours away, that got me wondering if this helps or hurts him.
In the short-term, I think it helps. Of course it does: he shows up to be seen taking responsibility, just as the leak is fixed (if it is). It’s not unalloyed goodness, though, because the timing will have all the talking heads yammering about the timing of it. If the leak were stopped at almost any other time, the sole focus would be on the specifics of that (how it happened, what it means, what happens now, etc.). Instead, the focus will be at least partially on the optics of the president’s trip, and a focus on the underlying politics — whether the pundits cheer him on or not — is not good for him.
In the medium to long term, I think it may actually hurt him. An ongoing leak would be bad, but if it is now gone, the drama of fixing it is too. Instead of breathless reporting about what BP is doing or planning, all we have left is the impact. There may not be any more oil leaking, but there are already millions of gallons in the water, and it’s only just started affecting the shore. To make a Katrina analogy, the storm has finally passed, but the flood waters are still rising, and will be for the foreseeable future.
So now the news will fill (even more) with photos of oil-soaked wildlife and Monday-morning quarterbacking of the government response.
BP is involved in the cleanup of course, but the government’s role in the cleanup is much bigger than it was in the leak itself, and therefore its actions will be scrutinized much more closely. There are plenty of people on the Gulf coast, from Gov. Jindal down, that are frustrated with the government’s efforts and lack thereof. Expect to see them and their complaints featured more prominently now.
not easy for website owners to constantly…
come up with the fresh and interesting content for both their sites and se marketing purposes. it is rather difficult to sustain the interest of your site visitors and consistently produce quality content that will keep them returning to your website…
Looking around…
I love to browse in various places on the web, often I will go to Digg and follow thru…
The site…
I like what you guys are up also. Such intelligent work and reporting! Keep up the excellent works guys I’ve incorporated you guys to my blogroll. I think it will improve the value of my site
….
Wow!…
A very fascinating post….
Informative and precise…
Its hard to find informative and accurate info but here I found…
Looking around…
I love to surf in various places on the internet, regularly I will just go to Stumble Upon and read and check stuff out…
Digg…
While checking out DIGG yesterday I noticed this…
Great website…
[...]we like to honor many other internet sites on the web, even if they aren’t linked to us, by linking to them. Under are some webpages worth checking out[...]……
News info…
I was reading the news and I saw this really cool information…
Recommeneded websites…
[...]Here are some of the sites we recommend for our visitors[...]……
Sources…
[...]check below, are some totally unrelated websites to ours, however, they are most trustworthy sources that we use[...]……
Cool sites…
[...]we came across a cool site that you might enjoy. Take a look if you want[...]……
You should check this out…
[...] Wonderful story, reckoned we could combine a few unrelated data, nevertheless really worth taking a look, whoa did one learn about Mid East has got more problerms as well [...]……
Awesome website…
Really nice blog. I will check back for more information on this subject later….
Tumblr article…
I saw a writer talking about this on Tumblr and it linked to…
copywriters, copywriters who know how to get…
the job done when it comes to writing subtle sales copy, too.they make you look like the expert you arewell written blog posts or articles don’t just impart good information to your prospective customers. they make you look like the expert…
issues into your blog you can engage…
a lot of people into a great discussion on a wide variety of topics.racismwhew, this one is always a hot topic. you’ll be able to find plenty of ideas on blogging in this arena, you can take a human rights perspective…