Short term thinking

All of these examples are of the same type. Doing something in time to alleviate the problem results in the current situation never occurring and as such, there would have been no proof that it was the right decision. If we had started drilling for more oil in the places we can not today and as such oil prices did not get so high, no one would be given any credit for heading off a crisis. Instead we would be hearing about how we are destroying the wilderness for no good reason (not that environmentalists ever think there is a good reason).

It is like 9/11. Bush did something that a lot of people don't like and there has been no follow-on to 9/11 like what was expected but he gets no credit from the major quarters because "nothing has happened". On the other hand, had he done nothing and we had repeat attacks everyone would be yelling about how ineffective he is, which would have been true. Instead, he did do something and all is quite on the home front and he gets beat up for it.