Don't worry, the Obama Administration is in charge

I should begin by saying that I love the Coast Guard.  Seriously.  Having grown-up on the water and having owned a boat myself as an adult, nothing gives a mariner a greater feeling of security than knowing that the dedicated men and women of the U.S.C.G. are on guard day and night, one might say that they are "semper paratus".

That being said, I'll also acknowledge that they play an important role in education and enforcement of marine safety. But - you knew there was a "but" coming after all of that unexpected flattery - they realy look foolish on this one:  it seems that the Coasties ordered the crews of sixten barges to cease-and-desist from their (apparently successful) project of sucking-up oil from the water off the Louisiana coast.  The stated reason - the Coast Guard needed to ensure that there were life preservers and fire extingushers on board the barges, but they were supposedly having trouble contacting the barges' owners(!)

Yep.  Read about it here: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=10946379

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is ticked, and I don't blame him.  Apparently these barges are some sort of home-grown project, a bit of latter-day American ingenuity, which were remarkably successful.  At a time when every hour counts, a working solution to the environmental disaster was shut down by an arm of the Federal Government for a pettifogging reason.  Perhaps the entire story, as reported, is inaccurate; but if not I'd note that this is exactly the type of thing I referenced in my previous post.

Where's the leadership here?  Where's the unity-of-purpose, or the outside-the-box thinking?  How on earth can it be that the U.S.C.G. cannot detemine whether there are P.F.D.'s or extinguishers on board the badges.  They're either there or they're not.  These guys have no problem boarding a pleasure boat on a Sunday afternoon to check this kind of thing, why didn't they simply check the barges?  And - even supposing that there was nary a lifejacket or a fire extingusher to be found - why didn't they simply tell them "resolve the problem within N hours and you'll have no problem with us"?  Heck, in the perfect world in which I'd be Archlaic-in-Chief, the Coast Guard would have gotten my message about being part of the solution (see below) and dispatched a Seaman in a Boston Whaler to retrieve sufficient quantities of these items to being the barges into compliance.

No, that's not what the Coast Guard is for.  But when you're dealing with an emergency you take extraordinary measures.  At the very least you ask yourself, "is what I'm doing here aiding or impeding the cause?"  At best you look at a situation and think, "how can I best resolve this while contributing to the solution to the overriding problem here?"  This bif of nonsense is analogous to an OSHA inspector accosting a fireman who's fighting a conflagration and ordering him to put down his hose because the nozzle didn't meet current federal waterflow standards!

I don't blame the president for the Coasties following the rules.  I do blame him for failing to lead, and failing to make it clear that results take precedence over legalism and bureaucracy.  If you want to see leadership here, watch Gov. Bobby Jindal.  You may be seeing a lot more of him.