Dick Morris: ‘Obama Deserves To Be Excoriated For Failure To Regulate’

Dick Morris joined Sean Hannity last night, and did not hesitate to lay the blame of the BP oil spill at the feet of President Obama, though in a non-traditional way. Morris is a conservative thought leader and therefor a big proponent of both a “free market” and “small government.” Which makes his criticism last night a bit of a head scratcher when he said “Barack Obama deserves to be excoriated for the failure to regulate this industry adequately.” Huh?

To appreciate these comments in the proper context, one should recall that as an adviser to President Clinton, Morris encouraged the “triangulation” method, which combined both traditional Republican and Democratic proposals and rhetoric to both gain political clout and to make a legislative impact. So one wonders if this shift in blaming Obama for lack of effective regulation (or a too small role for the government?) will signal a new rhetorical tact for conservatives eager to score political points on the White House.

A partial transcript of Morris’ comments:

“You know it is incredible. To put this into perspective, we are not dealing with an act of God, volcano like iceland or earthquake like on Haiti. This was a totally foreseeable consequence of drilling a mile deep in the Gulf…there could be an explosion, gas is flammable, explosive and oil could spill out. It was almost a certainty that at some point this would happen.

This business is the most closely regulated industry in the world, oil drilling. Each piece of equipment has to be approved. Each procedure has to be approved by the Interior Department. What business did Interior have not having a back-up plan?

You can blame BP all you want. And they deserve it…we didn’t elect BP. And this is an industry that the government closely regulates, and Barack Obama deserves to be excoriated for the failure to regulate this industry adequately.”