This is a follow-up to yesterdays post about some in the media complaining about the president’s speech on Tuesday night:
The result was a $20 billion pot of money that will bring much-needed help to a devastated region. As one report noted, “The figure is not a cap on the potential damages, and the company received no liability waiver as part of the agreement.” BP also scrapped this year’s dividends payments, and agreed to set aside an additional $100 million to support unemployed oil industry employees.
It seems praise for the president isn’t especially common right now, but for Obama, this was no small feat — he got what he wanted, and gave up nothing. As one lawyer explained, “[The president] had no actual power to compel that aside from moral suasion and the threat of having an unhappy president. Legally, BP could have just waited for the lawsuits and drawn the whole thing out for years. As a lawyer, I find it a unique and mind-boggling accomplishment.”
Actions speak a lot louder than words, Bush was great at making big promises and not keeping them, remember “Bin Laden dead or alive” Obama seems very good at making small promises and then exceeding them. We have a health care, financial reform and now a fund to at least start re-building the gulf. What did Bush have at this point in his presidency other than a big hole in New York.