At a military change of command ceremony, the outgoing commander is said to be \u201cpassing the baton\u201d to his successor.\u00a0 And today in Washington, the new Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Robert Papp, joked, \u201cI\u2019m a little worried there might be oil on that baton.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the Gulf oil spill is no joke to the people whose way of life is threatened by the spreading oil.\u00a0 It\u2019s not very funny politically, for Republicans who support more oil exploration, or for a Democratic administration accused of failing to respond to the spill in a more decisive or effective way.<\/p>\n
But Admiral Papp\u2019s comment does paint an accurate picture of a change of command overshadowed by disaster.\u00a0 The outgoing Commandant, Admiral Thad Allen, has been the top federal official overseeing the spill from the beginning.\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019ll continue to be the National Incident Commander in the Gulf, even though he\u2019s scheduled to retire from the Coast Guard July 1st.\u00a0\u00a0 At that time, he could either be recalled to active duty or keep doing the same job as a civilian.<\/p>\n
At the same time, much of Admiral Papp\u2019s time and energy will now be occupied with the oil spill as he takes over as Coast Guard Commandant.\u00a0 At a news conference following the change of command, Papp said the Coast Guard will continue to support the oil spill cleanup effort.\u00a0 And he indicated the intense effort is taking its toll, saying there will soon be a rotation of crews and ships at the scene.<\/p>\n
Papp also said he agrees with recent statements by Admiral Allen that only BP is in a position to lead the response, because the oil company has all the equipment and expertise with deep water operations.\u00a0 He was responding to a question about \u201cfederalizing\u201d the capping of the leak and the cleanup of the spill.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s ceremony at Washington DC\u2019s Fort McNair had all the color and pageantry of any change of command.\u00a0 The band played; the colors were presented; and, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security were welcomed with a booming 19-gun salute.\u00a0 (Only the President and heads of state get 21-gun salutes.)\u00a0 The 87-foot Coast Guard cutter \u201cIbis,\u201d lay anchored in the Potomac River just beyond the massive tent erected for the ceremony.\u00a0 Wives and kids were introduced and thanked; and, two Coast Guard Academy graduating classes hooted and hollered when they were mentioned.\u00a0\u00a0 Allen graduated from the Academy in New London, Connecticut in 1971; Papp in 1975.\u00a0 Back then, the two cadets played football together.\u00a0\u00a0 Now they\u2019re exchanging a rhetorically oil-soiled baton.<\/p>\n
Their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano praised the Coast Guard\u2019s efforts, but nonetheless offered an ominous assessment.\u00a0 She said, \u201cWhat began as a search and rescue operation\u2026has now become a potential worst case scenario and an environmental catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the current efforts in the Gulf, Admiral Allen said at today\u2019s news conference there\u2019s no telling how big the spill will eventually be.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He reminded reporters, \u201cI have said from the start, I have not been comfortable with any of the estimates.\u00a0 That\u2019s the reason we\u2019ve been overly responsive in how many resources we\u2019ve put out there.\u201d\u00a0 He went on to say, \u201cUntil I see some hard numbers with assumptions from scientists, I\u2019m going to say we don\u2019t know with any exact certainty exactly how much oil is coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n
And in light of reports that the gushing oil, a mile under the Gulf, appeared to be getting darker and possibly increasing in volume, Allen said the flow fluctuates depending on how much gas is coming out, and has probably not gotten bigger.<\/p>\n
In any case, today\u2019s change of command, under cloudy Washington skies, against a backdrop of trouble and uncertainty in the Gulf, will probably be remembered more for its timing than for its pomp and pageantry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At a military change of command ceremony, the outgoing commander is said to be \u201cpassing the baton\u201d to his successor.\u00a0 And today in Washington, the new Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Robert Papp, joked, \u201cI\u2019m a little worried there might be oil on that baton.\u201d Of course, the Gulf oil spill is no joke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}