He's losing his marbles.
- President Obama, in a stark and striking comparison, said the devastating impact of the BP disaster on the national psyche "echoes 9/11."So traumatized is Obama by his own 9/11 that he went golfing yesterday before heading down today to the Gulf for photo-ops in three different states.
The endlessly spewing oil rig off the Gulf Coast - like the terror attacks of 2001 - will influence the nation's future long after the crisis passes, the President said in a provocative Oval Office interview with Politico.
"In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come," Obama added in language that underscored his new sense of urgency about the disaster.
The interview, conducted Friday, was released Sunday - and sparked an instant debate among some 9/11 family members.
"I think he's off-base," said ex-FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, whose son died at the World Trade Center. "These were terrorist attacks, these 9/11 murders, not something caused by people trying to make money."
Sally Regenhard, who also lost a son, said she could see some validity to the comparisons.
"Just like on 9/11, there were no plans for emergency preparedness, coordination of response," she said. "It's a failure of the system and the government. I'm not offended by the comment."
But Jack Lynch, whose firefighter son Michael was killed in 2001, felt Obama misspoke.
"To compare an environmental accident, if that's what you call it, to a premeditated terrorist attack is ridiculous," he said. "Politicians have no sense of reality."
Obama wasn't the first to draw parallels between the terrorist attacks and the still-spreading Gulf of Mexico spill, with columnists and others describing the disaster as an "environmental 9/11."
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