Of course it's a given that Glenn Beck's comparison means squat. The difference between a raging building fire and the raging oil spill is that WHAT IF one of the other barges didn't have safety precautions, blew up, and more lives were lost? With all the, er, RAGING criticisms, that would be just added to the, er, existing fire. The Coast Guard taking precautions by covering their asses is therefore understandable. If a barge blew up because it didn't have proper safety equipment on board, ol' Glenn Beck's own hair would be on fire over it possibly causing the entire Fox newsroom to melt down.
Fine you don't like Beck's analogy because of the source. Let's explain it another way.
Calling the barges in for 'safety inspections' is the equivalent of the city comptroller refusing the fire department to send trucks to an active disaster because they are overdue one week for their oil change. After all, what if one of the trucks breaks down? The city must be careful with the equipment.
But the entire city population isn't already clamoring for the chief's head! If they were, and if a truck did break down because it skipped maintenance, the chief would be run out of Dodge.
The timing and methodology of these inspections is highly suspect. They could done a far easier method by sending out a set of cutters or other craft to the barges, checked the barge WHILE UNDER OPERATION, and if they found violations, they can write the fine there, send it in, or replenish the supplies OR tell that individual barge to shut down, go to port and meet compliance.
There's something else going on here. Either it was an innocent bureaucratic snafu that is going to cost some midlevel bureaucrat or officer his career, or it's a deliberate attempt to make the situation worse for the sake of political power because Jindal WAS being effective.
