[R]ight here, right here in Grand Isle and all along the Gulf coast, there are only three things that matter: stopping the oil from flowing, protecting the coast and the ocean from the millions of gallons of oil that have already spilled, and making sure that this never ever happens again.
You can diagnose whether we have a functioning media in this country by whether or not the country understands that this is a vile environmental mega-disaster.
You can diagnose whether we have a functioning political system in this country by whether or not the results of this mega-disaster is change.
Big Oil has been too rich to care about what it was putting us all at risk for. And we’ve been too cowardly to change direction and break free from them.
If that changes because of our national disgust at this disaster, then America’s political system in 2010 works. If it doesn’t change, then it doesn’t work.
Rachel Maddow: This Isn’t Katrina; It’s America’s Own Mega-Disaster. We Own It
Anyone who has been reading what I've written for the last few months can probably guess how I'm betting those diagnoses will go. My guess is that, however disgusted he may be, President Obama will do nowhere near what's necessary to prevent this from happening again. He will, to use Maddow's words, "whore himself" to the big money, and the big money wants oil stocks to do better.
I will be happy to be wrong. Until he breaks that pattern, however, I will count on Obama to do the wrong thing, if the wrong thing is more profitable to him than the right thing. That goes for most of the prostitutes in Congress, too.
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