Obama: I'll 'make sure we get the job done'

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu · 2010-08-29T22:15:53+00:00

In NBC interview, president rejects critics of oil spill response, says Gulf Coast on road to recovery after Katrina Video Obama: Katrina 'a shameful breakdown' NBC News President Barack Obama answers a question from NBCs Brian Williams in an NBC Nightly News interview Sunday. NEW ORLEANS President Barack Obama rejected criticism of his response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Sunday, saying in an interview airing on NBC Nightly News that his administration jumped on the crisis immediately and was determined to hold BP accountable. Obama was interviewed Sunday afternoon by Nightly News anchor and managing editor Brian Williams while on a trip to New Orleans to help commemorate Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall five years ago. Obamas predecessor, President George W. Bush, was widely criticized for his administrations response to Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people and laid waste to this city and much of the surrounding Gulf Coast. As BP struggled for weeks to cap the well that began gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico in April, Obama came under similar pressure from environmental activists who said the federal government should have stepped in earlier and taken greater control leading, as Williams noted, to critics characterization of the oil spill as Obamas Katrina. That is not accurate, Obama said, pointing to the $20 billion fund BP set up under federal supervision to compensate victims of the oil spill. Obama said failures in the aftermath of Katrina made it clear that the real protection for New Orleans and the coast are the wetlands, lessons that he said provided important guidance in allowing his administration to respond quickly in the days after the oil spill. This was a new opportunity for us to take a look comprehensively and ask how do we do things better and how do we do things smarter than weve done before, the president said, adding: Weve got to put all that stuff aside and come in and make sure we get the job done. Obama says he ignored Beck rally Obama briefly touched on several issues in a wide-ranging 20-minute interview, which took place under umbrellas in the New Orleans rain. He said he remained confident in his administrations policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he urged Americans to have patience with the economic recovery. Obama acknowledged that many Americans remained out of work while others were being badly pinched. But he said the recovery was a long-term effort that would pay dividends even if it was painful now. Its hard when youre right in the middle of it, he said. The president also chuckled when he was asked about polls that show many Americans still believe he is a Muslim. He said he didnt pay much attention to such polls, because I cant spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead. I dont think the American people want me to spend all my time on it, he said. He seemed intent on casting himself as above the political fray, saying he had more important work to do than to engage in the back and forth of the political silly season. For example, Obama said he did not watch any of Fox News Channel host Glenn Becks Restoring Honor rally Saturday on the National Mall. Im making decisions that are not necessarily good for the nightly news and not good for the next election, but for the next generations, he said. Obama: New Orleans is coming back The interview took place about an hour after Obama sought to reassure Gulf Coast residents that he was still focused on the regions larger recovery efforts after Katrina, the recession and the oil spill. My administration is going to stand with you and fight alongside you until the job is done, he told a cheering crowd at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded by the storm. Obama visits New Orleans on Katrina anniversary But as he did in the NBC News interview, the president offered no new initiatives in the struggling region, promising only that work on a fortified levee system would be finished Source: Obama: I

Thread starter Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu
Start date Aug 30, 2010

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu

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Obama: I'll 'make sure we get the job done'

Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu

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