The blame game seems to be a pretty popular sport these days. One the left has played to perfection. Did you see they’re blaming George W. Bush for splitting up Al and Tipper Gore? It’s those kinds of hysterics that make your Chairman a little hesitant to start pointing fingers whenever something goes wrong, but if there is someone to blame for this BP disaster, let’s look at some of the original culprits.

Our 38th Vice President Hubert Humphrey once said, “To err is human. To blame it on someone else is politics.” And in the context of those wise words, consider the Obama administration political maestros. It’s how they approach any problem that presents itself: “who can we blame, and how can we get more government involved?”

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that after a month of sitting on their hands while oil continued to approach the shores of the Gulf, the Obama and his team have at last been moved to bold action: assemble a legal team to investigate who’s to blame. It’s just instinct for these people.

But as long as we’re blaming everyone for what’s now considered the greatest environmental disaster of its kind, can I ask a stupid question? Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water to begin with? Look, drilling for oil whether on land or on sea is a dangerous operation, and accidents are going to happen. But why would we complicate the technical challenges by millions of degrees by drilling in those depths?

The answer: over the span of decades, the environmentalist lobby has succeeded in placing the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits for oil production. Meanwhile, we’ve had a 30 year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge. So where we could have been drilling in the barren wastelands of the Arctic, suppliers are pushed off the coast and in the center of a cornucopia of life, where fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation are all now being compromised. But in the pursuit of saving our environment, we’ve created the conditions for a disaster that will advance its destruction. Next time, let’s use some common sense to prevent these ironic tragedies.

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