President Obama cannot facilitate anything except agitate all parties except himself. If you are true leader you will actively become involved in solving a problem with statements such as calling for finding a solution or who can be mobilized to fix the problem (e.g., Apollo 13).

In this case, Obama speaks not with an active voice but with a passive voice. His recent statement, “Nobody is more upset than me, because ultimately, like any president, when this happens on your watch, then every day you are thinking, “How does this get solved?” That is not leadership but rather someone who is just observing. These problems (other than health care, etc. )seem like annoyances to Obama that are interfering with his change America agenda.

The oil spill has a huge complexity in that the problem is 5,000 feet below the surface where only a few vehicles can operate in those environments (i.e., extreme pressure). They do, however, have all the resources that exist on earth. Remember, however, in Apollo 13 the astronauts where in outer space (another extreme environment called a vacuum) with only the resources available to them on board their ship.