BP’s Oil Crisis is Obama’s Leadership Crisis

BP’s Oil Crisis is Obama’s Leadership Crisis

On The Ed Show, Katrina vanden Heuvel says that Obama needs to realize that BP’s mess is "more than an oil spill, more than an oil crisis. It’s also an economic crisis."

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On The Ed Show, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel lays out exactly what President Obama needs to do both for the future of the nation and for his political legacy. According to vanden Heuvel, the president needs to level with the American people, hold BP accountable and formulate "a new plan to wean us off our addiction to oil." She emphasizes that this is not a left or right wing concept, but what most industrialized nations are doing: investing in new technologies.

As for BP, vanden Heuvel tells host Ed Schultz that the administration should not bargain with the corporation but rather should push for a strong and effective Gulf recovery program and for much-needed reimbursements for lost wages. When Schultz says that BP was operating in a free market, vanden Heuvel responds, "This is not a free market that we’ve seen. What we’ve seen is greed and corruption."

—Melanie Breault

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