San Francisco (Obama.net)- The Obama Administration is in need of a new director for national intelligence following the resignation of Dennis Blair. After heavy deliberation and research, President Barack Obama has selected James Clapper as his nominee.
Clapper is a former Lieutenant General in a United States Air Force and a current intelligence official with the Pentagon. Clapper would be America’s fourth director of national intelligence in the past half decade. His duties would consist of looking over all sixteen United States intelligence agencies.
Clapper has a long history with the military and nine years of experience working in intelligence agencies in the United States.
Some are troubled by his past though. Dianne Feinstein, the Senator from California, and Missouri’s Senator Kit Bond believe that Clapper will put too much emphasis on the Defense Department and someone different needs to be brought in for the job.
However, Obama is confident in his selection. There are two sides to every argument and the President is not going back on his nomination because of a few people being uneasy with the selection.
In other Obama news, the United States President visited Louisiana for the second time in the last few weeks to again inspect the oil spill and the subsequent damage caused by it.
Of note, Obama made a point to meet with business people in Grand Isle to find out first hand how the spill in the Gulf of Mexico is affecting their work and what needs to be done to undo that destruction.
Unlike Obama’s first visit nearly two weeks ago, BP has finally reached some success in containing the spill and limiting further damage. In regards to BP’s latest efforts, the American President said, “it does appear that the cap at least for now is holding.”
Despite BP’s apparent progressions, Obama is still making it clear that the company will be held accountable for the financial costs of the spill and the clean up efforts.
Due to the project of the relief wells needing many months to be completed, the effects of the spill will continue to be felt for some time to come. According to Thad Allen, a member of the Coast Guard, “dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months,” and that “long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and stuff will be years.”
Despite the long journey that lays ahead for the people of Louisiana and the surrounding area to recover from the damages, Obama has pledged the assistance of the American government to make sure that the recovery does come.
Obama is doing all that he can to make sure that those hurt by the carelessness of BP would be compensated for all their losses.
Leave a Reply