Did the Obama administration know that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil into the ocean floor some nine weeks before it exploded?

At Townhall, Kevin McCullough writes in a kind of open letter to Obama:

It seems incomprehensible that you Mr. President and other members of the administration still have your jobs when it is now being reported that the federal government was apprised by BP on February 13th that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil and natural gas into the ocean floor. In fact according to documents in your own department’s files (MMS) you knew that BP was fighting large cracks at the base of the well for roughly ten days back before the spring thaw had arrived. Further it seems you were also apprised six weeks prior to the rig’s fatal explosion that killed eleven of her workers, when a smart guy from Berkley, you know the global capital of intellectualism, announced to the world a near miss on the rig by stating, “They damn near blew up the rig.” It’s also now being reported it appears that BP was asking for your help on this matter long before the deadly accident and the now gushing well of tar.

As a matter of fact it appears they told you on February 13th, and desired your help.

Given this new bit of revelation Mr. President I’m not sure how you can sleep at night knowing that your inaction did cost the lives of eleven family men in Louisiana.

If these allegations are true, they are very serious indeed.

Kevin McCullough does not give the source or sources of his information.

Who is “the smart guy from Berkley”? How does he know that “they” nearly blew the rig up? Who exactly are “they”?

If all this is true, we wait to see the consequences for the administration.

Obama is acting the role of POTUS, not  filling it. He reads from a script. He does not understand the responsibilities of his position.

That’s the opinion of several commentators.

Carol Peracchio writes at the American Thinker:

So far, Obama’s approach to being president has appeared to be: 1. Make a speech outlining a policy (health care, stimulus). 2. Hand everything to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. 3. When the negative public reaction reaches critical mass, threatening passage of the legislation, spend the last two days before the vote twisting arms and making offers to Democrats. 4. Pass the legislation on a strictly party-line vote. 5. Make another speech taking full credit for whatever ended up passing.

Unless reading a teleprompter can be considered work, it’s obvious that anything that can be considered an achievement of this presidency is due to Pelosi and Reid, with honorable mention in the arm-twisting category to Rahm Emmanuel. And in the rare instance where a goal of the president does not involve Congress (think the Chicago Olympics), Obama’s “read a speech” approach to hard work is shown to be an utter failure. If there is even a tiny glimmer of light in the Gulf oil spill disaster, it’s that the Obama con that he actually is working and involved has been exposed …

A fascinating illustration of Obama’s work ethic can be seen in this article by Jack Cashill, who has done exhaustive research on the dubious authorship of Barack Obama’s autobiography. Apparently a “hopelessly blocked” Obama gave all his notes to his friend Bill Ayers, who “helped” produce a manuscript. Exchange Nancy Pelosi for Bill Ayers, and we see that Obama’s modus operandi toward actual work has not changed. …

President Obama played the Big Con and became president by perfecting the art of appearing cool, calm, intellectual, and competent. Unfortunately, this seems to be the extent of his repertoire of emotions… No matter the crisis, the president reads his lines the exact same way: cool, calm, detached. He is truly one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen. It’s too bad there isn’t a director around who can tell our (Not So) Great Pretender, “I’m afraid you’re just not what we’re looking for.”

From Newsmax, by Theodore Kettle:

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, whose tireless leadership in the days and weeks after 9/11 made him a national hero, has accused President Obama of doing everything wrong in his handling of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“It couldn’t be worse,” Guiliani said Wednesday when asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity to rate Obama’s performance. “I mean, this would be an example, if you’re taught ‘Leadership 101,’ of exactly what not to do: minimize it at first; two days after or three days after it happened, go on vacation. … He’s been on vacation more often than he has, by far, been to Louisiana or Mississippi, or any of the places affected,” Giuliani added. …

According to Giuliani, the president’s nonchalance delivers a “signal right into the entire bureaucracy, that they’re also very lackadaisical about it. But one of the things you understand as a leader is: your actions are going to energize your bureaucracy to do the best it can.”

The ex-NYC mayor charged that Obama exhibited a similar lack of leadership in the case of the Christmas Day botched airliner bombing last year, with a negative ripple effect as the result.

“He did the same thing on the Christmas Day bombing,” Giuliani told Hannity. “He stays on vacation for 11 days. So the other guys go on vacation.” That’s a clear reference to National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter not cutting short a ski trip after the December 25 near-destruction of a Detroit-bound passenger jet. … The reality is that the administration has made every mistake it could possibly make, right down to this criminal investigation of BP. … Are you gonna distract them from the job of what they’re supposed to be doing? … If we’ve got a bunch of criminals doing it, why are we allowing them to do it?” Giuliani wondered.

From the Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell:

Pretending that our economy can survive without a commitment to safe oil operations is naïve at best. It is binary: If we don’t drill, we import. And if we don’t open drilling to easier sources such as onshore deposits and shale, we limit ourselves to riskier exploration a mile below the ocean floor. Despite the president’s assertions at his press conference earlier this week, billions of barrels of “easily accessible” oil have been turned into “impossible to access” oil by federal regulations and moratoria – including the President’s own actions – that block any access.

What the President should do is examine the red tape that may have contributed to the failure to contain the environmental disaster. Were there missed opportunities to burn off more of the leaking oil because of overblown air pollution standards? What were the holdups in the use of dispersants? Did federal permitting delays stop Louisiana from creating the artificial barriers it needed? The answers to these questions appear to be yes, and that responsibility lies with the President. He and his team should make it top priority to waive any regulatory barriers that continue to slow cleanup and recovery efforts. …

The Deepwater Horizon platform sat on federal waters and was under federal jurisdiction. It is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that the leased space is not a threat to public health or safety. And it is the responsibility of the government to ensure the clean up efforts in the Gulf are appropriately managed. …

Coordinating the cleanup is equally imperative … The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 authorizes the president to oversee the cleanup efforts of the responsible parties, and offshore this duty falls to the U.S. Coast Guard. Yet, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had to lobby the White House for weeks to get engaged on this front. …

The Obama administration’s resort to criminal investigation and possible prosecution of BP is not only premature, it is predictable. In the wake of accusations that Obama has failed to take decisive action, his administration is taking the path of “nothing shows that you are ‘doing something’ like prosecuting someone.”

It is possible that criminal wrongdoing occurred, but the current approach—one that all but announces that criminal charges will be brought and then seeks to identify the crime and who will be designated as criminal—undermines the criminal justice system and Americans’ respect for the law. …

President Obama instinctively leans toward an activist government except when every so often he hesitates. Ironically, it is these moments that tend to be the precise times when the federal government’s role is most justified, whether that be border security, the war on terror, ceding sovereignty to multilateral organizations, or now in the Gulf. The federal government has a role in the Gulf, and it’s time for the president to articulate it to the American people.

We don’t disagree that Obama’s an incompetent windbag and a bad actor, but he has real power and is using it to impose his collectivist ideals on America, immensely harming the country he was so disastrously elected to lead.