July 20, 2010
So the well is capped, is it? Notice how President Obama has gone from "they" and "them" when speaking about this environmental disaster to "we" and "I." Now that it appears - appears - to be succeeding, the president wants to identify with success, where before he wanted to blame BP.
This is how politicians work, but we know, or suspect, several things. First, BP probably compromised safety by focusing on cost reduction. That was the charge by several survivors of the explosion. No doubt it will take several courts a long time to sort it all out.
But what we definitely know is that politics aside, we are going to still need oil and we have two choices: get more in our own back yard, or get more from enemies who hate us and use our money to subsidize terror around the world. Until we have sufficient alternative sources of energy, there are no alternatives. So how about lifting the moratorium on those offshore platforms and drilling on our two coasts and in Alaska?
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
