From the reviews that I have read, it seems that I am not alone in viewing President Obama's speech last night on the Gulf oil catastrophe as a dud. First, the speech was about a month or more too late in coming. Moreover, Obama tried to make the case that the federal government had been aggressively in charge from the get go when anyone who has watched the news daily knows that BP has been the one incompetently calling the shots and doing its best to keep the news media from being able to fully report on the disaster. In short, Obama seems to have only underscored that he's not the leader that Americans had yearned for. He's a follower and only starts to get engaged when things have passed the stage of being fully f*cked up: health care, DADT repeal, energy policy - the list goes on and on. Typically, once engaged he can give a mollifying speech, but last night fell flat. Especially since the media was simultaneously running coverage showing that NONE of the oil companies involved in offshore drilling had a competent emergency response to a major oil spill. Indeed, they all had more or less the same useless plan with the only variance being in the cover on the "plan" and how much detail was aimed at media and PR response. Obama has been in office two years now and this status is totally unacceptable. For the reality in the Gulf, first these highlights from the Mobile Press Register:*
Oil will likely continue to wash onto Alabama's coast through Monday, according to a forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Persistent winds have pushed the oil slick closer to the Alabama-Mississippi chain of barrier islands and the Florida Panhandle.
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Saturday, the Alabama Department of Public Health expanded its warning against swimming in coastal waters. People should avoid swimming in the Mississippi Sound west of the Dauphin Island Bridge and in Bayou St. John, Cotton Bayou and Old River in Baldwin County.
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Health officials had previously warned against swimming in Alabama's Gulf of Mexico waters off Baldwin and Mobile counties and in Mobile Bay waters at Fort Morgan. In the bay, numerous areas of oil sheen ranging from the size of a baseball field to the size of a tennis court dotted the surface Saturday afternoon. The sheens appeared on both sides of the ship channel to the north of Middle Bay Lighthouse. There were reports earlier in the day of a large amount of emulsified oil floating in that area of the bay, though none was seen during a late afternoon cruise.
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The economy of the Gulf Coast is dying - along with marine and wildlife - as Nero, I mean Obama fiddles in Washington. The government response has been incompetent, and I suspect this disaster will be Obama's Katrina: too little, too late. Here's highlights from the Huffington Post on the President's speech:
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Obama really, really wants to stop the oil spill. And he really, really wants to hold BP accountable for the damage they've done. And he really, really wants the Gulf Coast to come through this hardship and he really, really wants to wean us from our dependency on foreign oil, and oil in general. But "really, really wants" is not a plan, and only the bitterest and most brain-dead of political opponents would have presumed, going into tonight, that Obama had not yet properly sentimentalized his opinions on any of those matters.
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And yet, basically what we got, in spades, was sentiment. To be sure, it was no doubt deeply felt. And for all anyone knows, there may be, already codified, a whole series of plans in the works related to stopping the oil gusher, cleaning the gulf coast, and implementing a new series of energy policies. And they may be great plans! But if you were hoping that some of that stuff would be revealed on actual teevee cameras, in prime time, well, you were S.O.L.
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Some good news, I guess, is that Ray Mabus has been given oversight of a Gulf Coast Restoration Plan and that Michael Bromwich will be the new head of the heretofore terrible regulatory agency known as the Minerals Management Service. It may also cheer you to learn that if all goes according to plan and all the lobbyists in the world drop dead tomorrow and legislators stop behaving like a bunch of politically-compromised ass-clowns, BP will be forced to pay for the damages and the Gulf Coast will be restored.
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I think you can swap out the references to energy and add back references to health care, and we can all take a trip down memory lane, to the time we all wondered why Obama wasn't out there, actively pushing for something specific in the arena of health care reform. Right down to the "I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party" part, which basically commits Obama to a lengthy period of Chuck Grassley jacking himself off as the Republican Party returns with the idea of doing nothing that even remotely looks like it might be helpful to his Presidency.
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One very specific action Obama could have taken tonight was to make it clear that BP's ongoing clampdown on the media attempting to cover the oil spill was not to be tolerated and must end immediately. Didn't even merit a mention!
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How do you spell failed presidency? That's what it seems we are getting. But for Sarah Palin on the ticket, I suspect that even with his insanity, McCain now looks to have been a better choice to a number of folks.
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Obama really, really wants to stop the oil spill. And he really, really wants to hold BP accountable for the damage they've done. And he really, really wants the Gulf Coast to come through this hardship and he really, really wants to wean us from our dependency on foreign oil, and oil in general. But "really, really wants" is not a plan, and only the bitterest and most brain-dead of political opponents would have presumed, going into tonight, that Obama had not yet properly sentimentalized his opinions on any of those matters.
*
And yet, basically what we got, in spades, was sentiment. To be sure, it was no doubt deeply felt. And for all anyone knows, there may be, already codified, a whole series of plans in the works related to stopping the oil gusher, cleaning the gulf coast, and implementing a new series of energy policies. And they may be great plans! But if you were hoping that some of that stuff would be revealed on actual teevee cameras, in prime time, well, you were S.O.L.
*
Some good news, I guess, is that Ray Mabus has been given oversight of a Gulf Coast Restoration Plan and that Michael Bromwich will be the new head of the heretofore terrible regulatory agency known as the Minerals Management Service. It may also cheer you to learn that if all goes according to plan and all the lobbyists in the world drop dead tomorrow and legislators stop behaving like a bunch of politically-compromised ass-clowns, BP will be forced to pay for the damages and the Gulf Coast will be restored.
*
I think you can swap out the references to energy and add back references to health care, and we can all take a trip down memory lane, to the time we all wondered why Obama wasn't out there, actively pushing for something specific in the arena of health care reform. Right down to the "I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party" part, which basically commits Obama to a lengthy period of Chuck Grassley jacking himself off as the Republican Party returns with the idea of doing nothing that even remotely looks like it might be helpful to his Presidency.
*
One very specific action Obama could have taken tonight was to make it clear that BP's ongoing clampdown on the media attempting to cover the oil spill was not to be tolerated and must end immediately. Didn't even merit a mention!
*
How do you spell failed presidency? That's what it seems we are getting. But for Sarah Palin on the ticket, I suspect that even with his insanity, McCain now looks to have been a better choice to a number of folks.
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