Posted on 06/16/2010 5:30:35 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
To the left, the oil spill is not an index of presidential competence or an issue in the political sphere. It is a daily gushing of poison into the Earth’s waters as a direct result of the president’s failure to stop it. They blame BP. But they already hate oil companies. And they blame Obama, too. And they are coming to dislike him.
When Obama attempts to recoup this damage to his political base by pushing new legislation on the environment or by resurrecting his cap and trade legislation or by bringing criminal charges against BP or by setting up a liability fund for the spill’s victims, it does not solve his political problem. With each day, 60,000 gallons gush into the Gulf, Obama’s equivalent of the body count in Iraq that caused the left to loathe George W. Bush. Rhetoric or programs or visits to the Gulf or posturing won’t assuage the negatives. Only plugging the hole in the bottom of the ocean can do it.
The right and center of American politics turned off Obama over health care. And now the left is leaving him over the oil spill.
Why can’t Obama plug the hole?
Because he has no administrative experience. I often saw Bill Clinton, as governor and as president, call in experts and ask the tough questions when he faced a new disaster. In Arkansas, it was tornadoes or floods or fires. In Washington, it was Oklahoma City. But, each time, he thoroughly familiarized himself with all the technical issues. He took a bath in the science and substance of the hazard and became as knowledgeable as those who had spent a lifetime studying it. So he knew what questions to ask.
Any CEO or COO or manager has similar experience. But a community organizer, law professor, state senator, US Senator, and president doesn’t have the requisite experience. He doesn’t know not to trust his own bureaucracy. He hasn’t been burned enough to realize that he needs to intervene to waive restrictions, set aside regulations, and open up the process to new solutions. He’s like JFK during the Bay of Pigs. He doesn’t know how to avoid being betrayed by his own bureaucracy and the industry it’s supposed to regulate.
Why did he not waive the Jones Act (he still hasn’t) to allow foreign vessels to ply our waters to clean up the spill? Not because he was against it. He couldn’t have been against so obvious a course as waiving it. It was likely because nobody told him about it and he never knew to ask.
Why did he let the bureaucracy use only US contractors to dredge the Gulf and build the berms that Louisiana wanted? Why did he spurn the offer of Dutch assistance (half the country has been dredged from the sea and is below sea level)? Not because he wanted the jobs to go to Americans. That would have been an insane consideration in the face of this crisis. it is probably because he never realized that our capacity for dredging needed augmentation. Because he never asked.
To the right and the center, these failings show that Obama is in over his head. But to the left, which bleeds for each drop of water in the Gulf and cries over every turtle or shrimp or sea bird, it is an unpardonable sin.
It is the nature of things that presidential mistakes metastasize into presidential character flaws. Bush’s inaction over Katrina comes across as insensitivity. Now Obama’s incompetence and inexperience is causing liberals to see him as arrogant, aloof, removed, conceited, suspicious of outside advice, and even lazy. Long after the oil has stopped spilling, these supposed character defects will haunt the president, just as Carter’s reputation of timidity and inability lasted long after the Iran hostages came home. These defects will last until 2012 and beyond.
The title of Puke that I’ve bestowed on him is far too generous.
Romney is Mormon, and was publicly pro-choice for most of his career, the evangelical vote would have deserted him in droves.
And Huckabee’s populist schtick didn’t fly with a lot of fiscal conservatives either.
Bottom line, if we had a strong candidate, then the media wouldn’t have been able to “pick our candidate”, the media will always support the weakest Republican candidate, but a strong candidate would have overcome it. We didn’t have any one close to be a strong candidate.
Any way, I’m done rehashing 2008, let’s just make sure we have a strong candidate in 2012.
The fact that a Hussein Muslim with no experience won in this day in age is incomprehensible. It’s a combo of conservatives with principles and young liberals without a clue.
Hey, we’re a country that kills more than 1 million babies every year.
Nothing we do is that incomprehensible.
And more. Good comment at WSJ
Lewis Stepp wrote:
The government collects billions of dollars from oil companies for drilling on government land and waters. When government explicitly permits individuals or companies to engage in risky activity that endangers the safety or property of its citizens, like deep water drilling, then it is the undeniable responsibility of the government to have the rules, resources and a plan in place to mitigate and manage the risk.
The US government was not prepared for this or any Gulf spill. That is as unacceptable as the risks that BP took.
Geoff Wilson replied:
Lewis,
collecting billions of dollars of fees really means that the government is collecting billions of dollars from US, the electorate, who then have to pay those costs through higher oil prices. Surely you recognize that. So, that means that you already paid for the level of protection the government provided in this case. How’d that work out for you? The electorate already paid billions of dollars in fees for “oversight” that was supposed to prevent this type of thing from happening. Why is no one talking about government failure here? I mean, either the government is in charge or it is not, right? How come they are in charge when things are going right and collecting the fees to prove it, but then when something goes wrong, all of a sudden BP is the bad guy?
Once again...young liberals without a clue. Point taken.
Yippie! Now we get to buy more oil from the bad guys.
Scott Brown met with 0bama today in the oval office and spoke frankly to him...not sure it did any good. Scott was stressing no new taxes for oil spills.
This gulf thing was the perfect deflection; only its now out of hand and worse than the original problem.
That's why he looked so damn fake and weak last night. His handlers' plan did not work out and he's going to be eviscerated because of it; more over, he knows it.
The MSM will do whatever it wants to because the idiots in this country sold their liberty and freedom for cable TV. The TV networks (who own 95% of all the channels) will stick up for Obama no matter what.
Fox/Saudia News is only a bit better.
Don't forget that we had Democrats voting for McCain in states like NH for the primaries. In NH all you had to do was say you were planning to move here and you were allowed to vote. I was stunned at the number of Massachusetts plates I saw in the parking lot on the primary voting day.
I also had my hopes set on Thompson.
If Soetoro is still a viable candidate in 2012 then the Press and the Democrats will, indeed, choose the Republican candidate because large, perhaps overwhelming, numbers of Democrats will re-register as Republicans to vote in the Republican primaries. The Republican primaries will be especially targeted by Democrat vote fraud organizations like ACORN or whatever acronym it is flying under at the time. We need for Mrs. Bill to mount an insurgent campaign against the Kenyan to keep the Democrats in their own primaries. At the same time Hilarius in actual contention is itself a scary thought tempered by the knowledge that insurgent winners of nomination against incumbent presidents have not heretofore won the ensuing elections.
Same with Hunter. Republicans like to have their names on the list of candidates. They don’t like the strenuousness of actually running and the thought of winning leaves them cold. Palin is the exception and seems to be actually serious and obviously studied Reagan’s techniques.
and not really necessary when the whole government is a protection racket.
BINGO
Man. Even ol' "Slow Joe" Biden is looking like an improvement.
Well said. I heard a self-important media type prattle on recently about the importance in American industry of establishing a "society of innovation."
*knock knock* Hello? Yoo hoo!
Ever heard of free-market capitalism and individual liberty?
What a maroon.
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