Oily Obama: Woulda Shoulda Coulda
Obama pontificates, blames others, and decrees new taxes to punish America while a broken pipe at the bottom of the ocean continues to spew miles-long oil slicks and decimates our beautiful, life-generating estuaries and shorelines of the Gulf Coast.
Teh One has spoken and once again proved that spanning the distance between being elected president and being presidential eludes his narcissistic grasp. On a somber occasion marking what has turned out to be -- through his own nine weeks of inaction -- a national crisis, Obama chose not to unite the nation but rather to bask in the unholy statist light of a new regressive national energy tax.
Instead of focusing on stopping the leak and cleaning up the mess, Obama is exploiting yet another crisis to impose job-killing taxes on struggling families and small businesses. Not surprisingly, Americans are angry over this latest failure of the Obama regime, and last evening's political sham certainly did nothing to assuage that anger.
Just how awful was Obama's smug-filled spill fest? Consider the verdicts from Obama's own State-run Media propagandists at MSNBC:
Keith Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said." and "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."
Chris Matthews: "No direction." and "Ludicrous that he keeps saying (Secretary of Energy) Chu has a Nobel prize. I'll barf if he does it one more time." and "A lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk. I don't sense executive command."
Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough. Obama should be acting like a commander-in-chief."
You know you didn't bring your A Game when those three Fellow Traveler media toadies hammer you. It must have been an emotionally debilitating experience for them.
Before blame, stop it and clean it
Anyone can sling blame about, but that does not help fix the problem. We've already had nine weeks of Obama blaming everyone and everything under the Sun -- with the glaring exception of his own regime.
To Obama, a honeyed phrase is a terrible thing to waste. However, the emergency managers amongst you are familiar with the National Contingency Plan. It appears that the Obama regime's NCP needs revision. Perhaps the regime's Minerals Management Service should revise its inspection procedures as well. MMS performed its inspection on the Deepwater Horizon prior to the incident and was unable to detect any problems. And nine weeks of jetting across America for golf, dates with Michelle, banquets, and fund-raisers? Please.
Just shut up -- it's not about you. Plug the leak, clean up the oil, mitigate the spill's effects on the livelihoods of those affected, and salve your precious ego later.
Kicking a behind that needs it
In fact, we could play the blame game forever. Consider the Top 10 list that appeared in Human Events just prior to Obama's national bleat, compiled by RedState editor Erick Erickson:
Hey Barack, You Should've Done This...
President Obama will address the nation on the Gulf oil spill tonight, telling the American people how he has been doing all he can to "plug the damn hole" and whose behind he might kick.
Since his strategy dealing with the spill seems lacking thus far, Redstate editor Erick Erickson has compiled a Top 10 list of things to alleviate the disaster that Obama could have done but didn't.
1. Accepted help from the Netherlands when they offered it shortly after the accident. The Dutch, experienced in the oil business, offered prompt help for oil skimming booms and plans to create barriers to stop the oil from infiltrating into wetland areas.
2. Suspended the Jones Act, as President Bush did after Katrina, to allow foreign vessels into American waters to assist with recovery without having to swap ships and transfer equipment onto American flagged vessels.
3. Suspended the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws, as President Bush did after Katrina, to allow rapid deployment of new workers to help with containment efforts.
4. Suspended FEMA contracting and bidding rules, as President Bush did after Katrina, to allow a more rapid assignment of contracts to assist with the recovery effort.
5. Allowed coastal governors to immediately begin dredging to create barrier islands.
6. Talked to BP's CEO to establish initial metrics for progress to gauge BP's response so the federal government would have ascertainable metrics to determine when federal intervention was needed. Heck, he should have talked to BP's CEO period.
7. Not imposed a blanket deep water drilling moratorium, further crippling economies in coastal communities.
8. Talked to experts about how to fix the problem instead of trying to figure out whose "ass to kick."
9. Not waited to act lest he be seen as owning the situation. Guess what? He owns it now so why is he still on the golf course?
10. Not have wasted time trying to blame the accident on George Bush before diving in to take responsibility.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Let's all hope that Obama sees the light and does not exploit this crisis to impose job-killing energy taxes that will strangle the nation.
Yeah, right -- when pigs fly.
Hype and Chains for 138 more days.