PENN’S VISION OF ‘IMMEDIATE ACTION’…. Pollster Mark Penn has some advice for the administration when it comes to the federal response to the BP oil spill disaster. He says it’s time for a “new strategy.” And what should the new strategy include? The public opinion expert explains that “the public is looking for direct and immediate action.”
Got it. Now, let’s hear what this action might include:
On the BP crisis, he needs to get away from the posturing politicians and the environmentalists and get together with scientists, generals and big-time business people who have experience solving big logistical problems. Now is the time to call in the big brains, lock them in a room, and deliver every possible resource to shut the oil flow down; think Manhattan Project meets Independence Day, with fewer aliens and more eggheads. The country that put a man on the moon and developed the atomic bomb shouldn’t be stumped by an oil leak…. Pledge to stop it in 45 days and do it in 30.
It prompted Jon Chait to conclude, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this man is a total fraud. He has absolutely no idea what he was talking about.”
I’m trying to think of a charitable interpretation of Penn’s advice, but I honestly can’t come up with anything. Locking “eggheads” in a room and hope they think of something? This constitutes “direct and immediate action”?
Seriously?
