TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The Economist, commenting on Obama’s response to BP:

If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so. The collapse in BP’s share price suggests that he has convinced the markets that he is an American version of Vladimir Putin, willing to harry firms into doing his bidding.

First, it should be noted that The Economist endorsed Obama in the 2008 election. And comparing him to Vladimir Putin is *sort of* serious.

Second, however, this nicely summarizes why the administration’s response to BP is so troubling. BP bears responsibility for the oil spill and all damages associated with it—damage to the environment, to affected businesses, and to affected states for lost tourism revenue. Our system is designed to handle this through the court system, so damages are fairly awarded. This is a defined, orderly and understood process.

The Obama administration, however, has decided that this isn’t for the courts to decide, but for the president. By forcing BP to place $20 billion in a separate fund, and to pay $100 million for salaries of workers who lost their jobs due to Obama’s own moratorium on deepwater drilling, Obama has made himself both executive and judge. That’s deeply troubling.

He has done so not because the court system has failed (which still would not justify transferring a judicial responsibility to the executive branch), but for political expediency. Because Obama claimed during his campaign that the federal government’s maligned response to Hurricane Katrina was due to incompetence in the Bush administration, and he would lead an effective response to disasters as president, he has been criticized for not doing much in response to the oil leak. He is making what should be a question for the courts—how much damages to award, decided coolly, without outside influence—into a political question.

That should worry everyone, and schadenfreude for BP shouldn’t cloud just how wrong the administration’s response is.