Obama can’t be so naive to not know the issues and the problems he faces are hurdles even the most preeminent politician would hard pressed to stop the crash course he is on. Now I don’t always agree with Peggy Noonan but she does make a great post-Oval Office speech point. Below are excerpts:
“The president is starting to look snakebit. He's starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter. It wasn't Mr. Carter's fault that the American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, but he handled it badly, and suffered. Mr. Carter's opposite was Bill Clinton, on whom fortune smiled with eight years of relative peace and a worldwide economic boom. What misfortune Mr. Clinton experienced he mostly created himself. History didn't impose it. But Mr. Obama is starting to look unlucky, and–file this under Mysteries of Leadership–that is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines.”
“The administration's failure to take impressive action after the spill dinged its reputation for competence. The president's failure to turn things around Tuesday night with a speech damaged his reputation as a man whose rhetorical powers are such that he can turn things around with a speech. He lessened his own mystique. Reaction among his usual supporters was, in the words of Time's Mark Halperin, "fierce, unforeseen disappointment." Dan Froomkin of the Huffington Post called the speech "profoundly underwhelming," a "feeble call to action." Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich called the speech "vapid." Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times said the president looked "awkward and robotic." MSNBC's Keith Olbermann famously said "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days." Chris Matthews scored "a lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk." Mr. Olbermann, on Mr. Obama's well-written peroration: "It's nice but, again, how? Where was the 'how' in this speech when the nation is crying out for 'how'?" The president said he had consulted among others "experts in academia" on what to do about the calamity. This while noting, again, that his energy secretary has a Nobel Prize. There is a growing meme that Mr. Obama is too impressed by credentialism, by the meritocracy, by those who hold forth in the faculty lounge, and too strongly identifies with them. He should be more impressed by those with real-world experience. It was the "small people" in the shrimp boats who laid the boom.
And when speaking of why proper precautions and safety measures were not in place, the president sternly declared, "I want to know why." But two months in he should know. And he should be telling us. Such empty sternness is . . . empty.”
Empty? Is that what I’m feeling? Is it what you’re feeling? Or are you from Colorado Springs just feeling…Gay?
When you speak from the Oval Office, words mean things. Not that they don’t all the time, they do, but when you say them there, you better have something to say. We don’t need nebulous “wispers of some fine fine day when we get there, and we’re not sure how, and we’re not sure why we don’t know when or how but if we just….” OMG SHUT UP!!!
This is the Oval Office you snake oil salesman. You want the job or not? You have two dozen states that are looking into adopting the Arizona Immigration law, you have 1/4 of the Gulf of Mexico fouled with oil, you have two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you have Israel and Iran rattling sabers, you have Iran thumbing it’s nuclear nose at you and all you can do is use the Oval Office to push your green economic unproven and unreliable ideas on us that will raise energy costs for every American by no less than 30% and more like 50%.
You know, like it or not, we have to drill, and once and a while, someone spills. But when a spill this size happens, we need leadership. Getting knocked down happens, but should you decide to get up, you better ask yourself if that’s what you really want to do. Getting up means fighting on, and how you conduct yourself from the moment you get on your feet, is what matters most. We are close to 60 days now.
This spill does not mean “stop drilling” Mr. President. Yet you order the stopping of deep water drilling in the entire Gulf and expect bp to pay their salaries along with anything else that comes to mind. The idea that America only has a small percentage of the worlds oil supply is just stupid and to tell me this means you think I am stupid. Well you may be right, but I wasn’t stupid enough to vote for you, or any of your pie-in-the-sky promises you were making. Who really looks inept right now sir, is you. Governor Jindal was told by The President to call when things are not going well and he would help. The Governor called…repetedly and got nothing. You can't do what you say you will do.
Obama then lectured Americans about our consumption. "We consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves," he complained." (That’s just a flat out lie. We are only allowed to get at what they say we can and right now, that isn’t much on land) “And that's just part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water." Of course, Obama's chutzpah conceals the real reason oil companies are drilling in deep water -- which is that government arbitrarily continues putting land and shallow water off limits.
Comedian Jay Leno may have summed it up best when he quipped, "President Obama announced [Tuesday] that he wants to use the oil spill to move America toward green energy. I have a crazy idea. Maybe he should use the oil spill crisis to fix the oil spill."
Meanwhile, BP has acquiesced to Democrat demands for a $20 billion political slush fund, er, escrow account to be used to compensate people and businesses harmed by the spill. The fund will be administered by Kenneth Feinberg, a lawyer who oversaw both the 9/11 victims' fund and executive pay limitations under TARP. Democrats are further insisting that the $75 million liability cap for oil spills (passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress in 1990) be raised and retroactively applied to the company. Apparently, it doesn't matter that BP had already stated its intention to pay more than $75 million if necessary.
Obama declared that this is the best way to make the victims whole -- "We will make BP pay," he said -- but let's not forget that he has also ordered a six-month moratorium on drilling, to the outrage of politicians on both sides of the aisle and to the detriment of those working in the industry. Our fearless leader is hoping no one notices that he's giving Gulf residents money with one hand, while further crippling their economy with the other. To be sure, BP should be liable for the spill, as should Transocean and Halliburton, which were involved with the rig and the well. But as columnist Steve Chapman put it, "A villain as hated -- and justifiably hated -- as BP creates a temptation to indulge in excess, and Obama is not inclined to resist."
All of this notwithstanding, we should note that blaming Obama for not plugging the spill isn't entirely legitimate. However, he is certainly to blame for his initial dithering; for his overreach, which has exacerbated the disaster and could lead to similar accidents in the future; and for his pursuit of job-crushing energy policy (e.g., drilling moratoriums, cap-n-trade), which will further stifle a struggling economy.
Bureaucratic red tape has hampered cleanup by delaying oil burn-off and the use of dispersants because of environmental concerns (never mind the 60,000 barrels of oil a day gushing into the Gulf). The administration also waved off foreign assistance because of the ill-conceived 1920 Jones Act, which mandates U.S. union labor for particular jobs. Permit delays slowed the construction of barrier islands off the Louisiana coast, though that didn't stop Obama from bragging, "We've approved the construction of new barrier islands in Louisiana to try to stop the oil before it reaches the shore."
To add insult to injury, Louisiana's oil-sucking barges were halted by the administration because the Coast Guard had to "confirm" that the barges had fire extinguishers and life vests aboard. After those "concerns" were allayed, the barges were then stalled because the Coast Guard had "problems" contacting the company that constructed the barges.
If Obama were more concerned with stopping the spill of oil rather than the spill in his poll numbers, he would offer whatever legitimate assistance the federal government can provide and then get out of the way.
IF YOU ARE THE PRESIDENT, AND YOU SAY YOU WILL DO SOMETHING, AND THEN YOU DON'T DO IT, YOU TARNISH THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT AS WELL AS THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY. SAYING WE MUST CHANGE OUR ENERGY POLICY WITH OUT KNOWING OR EXPLAINING HOW WE WILL GET "THERE" OR WHEN BUT WE MUST TRUST YOU TO GET US "THERE" WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE "THERE" IS, SOUNDS LIKE A RUDDERLESS CAPTAIN FROM "HERE".
