I am sorry Mr President, promises that an oil company will pay for the damage done ring somewhat hollow. Assurances that they have assured you that they will eventually get the leak under control with the next attempt have proved to be more blind faith than fact.
Where were the demands that BP pay all the other oil companies to get their clean up equipment on site?
Where was the call on other oil producing nations to send their best equipment and brightest specialists to help?
Where were the plans to mobilize?
I don't need you to get angry, I need you to get specific, rhetoric is fine on a campaign stump, I want to know what the plan is to stop this madness happening again.
We have a CEO in Tony Hayward so I would humbly suggest a Harvard Business School approach is not what is needed, but a Presidential one is desperately sought.
The moment is now.
Climate change legislation
It is the defining moment of our generation, this was the defining environmental disaster, this was the ultimate opportunity to define where we need to go, and what we all need to do to get there.
The moment was lost.
Are we really in the "Age of Stupid"
I am not angry, just bitterly sad, but there is time.
BP are no quoting a leak rate that many of us forecast weeks ago, as if its some type of discovery, an Exxon Valdez every four days. Call them liars and take control away from people more concerned with BP's image than doing what needs to be done in cleaning up. Move the nations resources and state strongly why this will never happen again, ban deep water drilling and maintain a moratorium on all new exploration, plan to replace oil jobs with green jobs.
Most importantly inspire a national drive to energy independence via renewables, announce a Marshall plan on climate change, ask the nation to be brave and follow a dream. Propose taxes on fossil fuels to pay for the change to a green economy.
In other words.
1] Fight for the future
2] Inspire us to get there.
3] Lead us.
If this was a defining moment, it was badly missed.
I always have believed the ultimate role of the president of the United States was to inspire and not to manage, to take out a big stick when necessary.
The time for rhetoric is over, only actions will count.
So dear Mr President.
Where is the plan?
If we miss this opportunity and the nation turns to the republicans then the future looks very bleak indeed.
So take this plea:
Lead us, use our anger.
Help us, by proposing a vision of the future.
Inspire us as a nation to work together.
Take the fight to the hill, politics and corporations be damned.
We will then do the heavy lifting, there is more than enough talent out here.
The US never works better than when the gauntlet is thrown down and the sky is not the limit, the time for clever politics is over, a time of a clear vision of the future is now.
Its a plea and a hope, because the alternative is bleak.
The moment is now.
I'm ready Mr President, but are you?