surfin' mobile bay

fun, fun, fun off the coast of alabama:

(hat tip to pharyngula)

the art of the backdown

oil producer british petroleum (BP) ceo tony hayward, forecasting the damage, or lack thereof, to the gulf of mexico from the ongoing and as-yet-uncontrolled flood of crude oil from the well damaged by the destruction of his deepsea drilling rig deepwater horizon:

i think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest. it is impossible to say — we will mount, as part of the aftermath, a very detailed environmental assessment as we go forward. we're going to do that with some of the science institutions in the u.s., but everything we can see, at the moment, suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest. (may 18)

ten days later ...

it is clear that we're dealing with a very significant environmental crisis and catastrophe. ... a cup of oil on the shore is failure. ... in that regard, we have failed to defend the shoreline to the degree and extent that we believed we could. (may 28)

(tip of the hat to think progress.)

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update: too true, john cole. too true ...

when the oil company that caused the mess is using this terminology, you have to wonder how horrible it is ...

the handshake

what josh said:

they got issues we keep the chat shows running through the day at TPM HQ. and i've been listening to a constant stream — mainly but not only on fox — of talk through the day about whether we should feel weak or ashamed or tarnished or any other number of things because president obama had a friendly handshake with huge [sic] chavez of venezuela. the whole idea seems so deeply silly to me that it's hard to know how exactly to even comment on it. but i'm struck once again by the sort of psychologically arrested mentality and extreme emotional insecurity that seems at work in the minds of many foreign policy conservatives — or more specifically, so as not to paint with too broad a brush, those of the neo-conish flavor. sure, a lot of this is just political posturing — trying to sound the story out for possible political vulnerabilities on obama's part. throw a bunch of mud up against the wall and see what sticks. what's striking to me though is that a lot of it seems like a very genuine, gut-level emotional response. (a related example is what matt yglesias pointed out a few days ago — how many right-wingers seem to have convinced themselves that north korea, a borderline failed state on the possible brink of economic collapse somehow has the us over a barrel.) in the course of our normal lives, few of us have much difficulty identifying habits of defensiveness or a penchant for histrionic or petulant interactions as signs of weakness, not strength. really powerful people don't need stunts and usually signal their power by a certain graciousness and indifference in such interactions. they have nothing to prove. but american power, respect, command of public opinion — however you want to define it — must be in these people's minds an extremely brittle thing. they really do seem like extremely insecure people.

comical nonsense a bit of follow about on right-wing paranoia. i'm just watching andrea mitchell interview michael o'hanlon about whether president obama showed some sort of dangerous weakness in happily shaking hands with hugo chavez. mitchell played a clip of the always cartoonish newt gingrich and then noted that conservatives are drawing the analogy to john kennedy's famous meeting with nikita krushchev in the latter sized kennedy up as a lightweight and — so the argument goes — thus believed he could be pushed around during the cuban missile crisis. now, kruschev? really? i'm not sure i can imagine a better illustration of the sort of parodic paranoia i'm talking about. we do realize that the us has the most powerful military in the world and venezuela has little ability to project military power beyond its own borders. it's a non-entity militarily, even compared to iran and north korea. will he be emboldened into calling obama el diablo?

update:

the shocking truth fresh off our earlier national humiliation, we just received a note from TPM reader SR. and SR points out that in the second image of our obama at the summit of the americas slideshow we see president obama shaking hands with the dog of the president of mexico. he even seems a bit to be bowing to the dog.