BrianGarst.com

Whenever big disasters strike, opportunists jump at the chance to lampoon their political opponents. In response to the oil spill in the Gulf, we’re seeing just that as many on the right begin to construct the narrative that Obama’s response was slow or deficient. In so doing they are following the playbook successfully executed against Bush after hurricane Katrina.

There may well turn out to be faults in Obama’s response to the oil spill.  No doubt there will be investigations, inquiries and fact-finding panels aplenty after things have settled down. Right now, however, I’m concerned that critics of the administration are falling into a big government trap.

It may well be that they can do the kind of harm to Obama that Katrina helped liberals do to Bush. But this is only a short-term benefit. In the long run their critiques only feed the view that government should be responsible for all things, and that the President is essentially a King who must only snap his fingers and see his will done.

Far more productive for small government advocates would be to point out that, as we saw with Katrina, government simply cannot and should not be counted on to respond with quickness and efficiency in the event of catastrophe. Bureaucracies are simply not well designed for the purpose, and blaming Obama only spreads the myth that with the right kind of interventionist President, government can be made into something it is not.

The incompetence of FEMA was not primarily the fault of Bush and any incompetence in wake of the oil spill is likely not the fault of Obama. It’s the fault of all Presidents and Congresses that have contributed to the growth of such a behemoth government in the first place, and the fault of all of us here perpetuate the idea that the first place to look for assistance in time of crisis is the federal government.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill