Posted on 06/13/2010 3:10:46 PM PDT by kristinn
Two stories about President Obama this weekend pushed my growing unease with his recent moves into full-blown anxiety. They come on the heels of Tim Dickinson's devastating Rolling Stone piece laying out concrete problems with Obama's response to the BP oil spill – from delays in cleaning up the Minerals Management Service, distrusting scientists who correctly reported the spill was much bigger than BP said, waiting more than a week to declare the crisis "an Oil Spill of National Significance," which corralled new services. Maybe the most damning, to me, section of Dickinson's piece comes when he quotes the president proudly announcing he'd reversed his stand against offshore oil drilling "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," the president said. "They are technologically very advanced." Dickenson notes: "Eighteen days later, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon rig went off like a bomb."
Of the weekend's worrisome Obama stories, the first was Politico's Roger Simon's interview with Obama, published in full today, in which his self-defense about how he's handled the BP oil disaster sounded whiny and juvenile, and raised big questions about whether he's capable of fighting the battles he needs to enter and win to move the country forward. The other was Matt Bai's "President in Chief?" in the New York Times Magazine, which showed that Obama and his team seem more focused on protecting the "brand" that they believe galvanized millions of new voters, young voters and independents in 2008, to potentially realign American politics, than with helping Democrats hold the House and Senate.
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I don't know where to start with that cavalcade of complaint. First, it sounds like the president has been spooked by the Tea Partiers and their shrill, silly claims he's a socialist. I'm alarmed that he seems to have internalized their crazy charges that he's been over-zealously expanding government. And is he really claiming that he would have loved to crack down on the oil companies with tougher regulations before the explosion, but he didn't, because he was afraid of what his opponents would say? I honestly don't believe that's true, and I don't know what's worse, that he's dissembling here, or that the excuse he's dissembling with is so lame.
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Between the BP oil disaster and the near-collapse of the world economy thanks to the finance industry – both have in common a corporate arrogance that big risks to make big money were worth taking, no matter the impact on the rest of us – Obama has the perfect context for laying out why government matters, and why Democrats run the government best. Instead he's carping about "folks up there" in Washington and complaining that if he'd tried to regulate the oil industry before the spill, people would have said bad things about him. Grow up, Mr. President.
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[First, it sounds like the president has been spooked by the Tea Partiers and their shrill, silly claims he’s a socialist. I’m alarmed that he seems to have internalized their crazy charges that he’s been over-zealously expanding government. ]
What’s not to love about insanity? You get to look at a blue sky and call it plaid, and no one cares because you are insane!
I listened to a female journalist one time. Can’t remember who it was. She had gone to her neice’s high school graduation and was asking some of the grads questions about America. My favorite was the one about who America had won its independence from. The H.S. grad responded with Vietnam. LOL!!! That’s great!!! Our publik skools are awesome!
yep, and some Russian stuff that said it was done by the North Koreans and then that story was called a hoax and shut down. When did NK sink that SK ship?
Salon still publishing?
Back when my sister was in high school, there was a gal in her senior social studies class who simply could not understand why America had had so much difficulty fighting in Vietnam, since it “was so close to us, and stuff.”
As it turned out, the gal had a little trouble with her geography. The place on the map she thought was Vietnam was actually occupied by...wait for it...*Baja California*.
And this was in the 1980s. Skools have only gotten worse since then, I fear.
Now it’s all just marketing and branding? Interesting.....it’s like discussing soda pop...
O’Bambi Grow up?
Won’t happen.
SK sub was sunk March 27th:
April 20th, Gulf Rig explosion (24 days after SK attack)
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=91333
Kim Jong Il welcomed to Red China May 3-7th:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/35455/
Gina Miller’s piece: (1st of May)
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2010/05/was-the-gulf-oil-rig-explosion-a-deliberate-attack-on-america/
US & SK to to anti-sub exercises: (5/24 piece)
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/24/u-s-and-s-korea-to-do-anti-sub-exercises/
U.S. and S. Korea to do anti-sub exercises
True, on one way, I suppose ... but no one of principle could delude themselves the way this woman does. Maybe "principled liberal" is an oxymoron.
The Trojans we studied when I was in school were the human kind.
My youngest took off when she was 16. No High School
She was recently visited by a HS Grad from LA.
This Californian did not know how to read a non-digital clock, and, suggested that as they were in Washington State, they should try out for Americas Top Model, as Washington DC was so Close!
Guess my kid was better off skipping it, instead of having her brains sucked out.
"Dork city, here we come."
It’s really scary when the women in this administration seem to have more testosterone than the men...just sayin...BTW not THE Jeff Chandler???
What’s the deal about the SWAT Teams going to the rigs? First I’ve heard of it.
OT:
Google “N.J. sold BP stock before spill”
We're seeing the same thing in the GOP, arent we?
Isn’t Earth Day Lenin’s birthday and not Hitler’s?
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