“Perhaps I should plug the damn hole with my Unicorn’s horn…”
I admit I watched very little of The Speech last night; in fact I only caught the last few pablum-laced minutes as I turned on the TV to play Red Dead Redemption. I found the references to WW2 to be completely…odd. I mean, a little perspective here: we’ve got a horrific spill in the Gulf but it ain’t quite the Nazis goosestepping across Europe.
So now Captain Detachment is going to take 20 minutes out of his busy golfing schedule to meet with BP executives. Gosh, that’s laser-like focus and commitment, isn’t it? That’s really take-charge leadership, eh? What a sad, pathetic joke. And his bold innovative plan to solve this spill? “Let’s form a Commission of Experts to study the problem – hey, did you know one of my advisers won a Nobel Prize (like me!)? We’re smart, by gum!” Yes, you know, experts.
The same ones who 60 days ago said the spill was schmaybe 1,000 barrels per day…then 5,000…then 12,000…okay, okay how about maybe 60,000? They don’t have a clue.
So instead of focusing on stopping the spill we get panels formed to talk about compensation. And, much in the same way Arizona has been forced to deal with immigration because of burgeoning bureaucratic bloat, so the Gulf States have been forced to act while Washington “studies.” Washington can pass massive legislation that they haven’t read to re-order our Health care system, they declare carbon dioxide a mortal hazard, they invest massive sums to control what we eat “for our own good,” they write laws to limit our speech and other freedoms…but to actually clean up a mess? Well, gosh, you need to fill out the proper permits and there is a period of time required for public comment and discussion and review by our Impact Assessment Experts…it’s sickening.
And in the rarefied air of their academic exercises they express shock and saddened dismay at how un-edjumacated we the People are; how we must be, regrettably, racist and just, well, too stupid to grok the munificent brilliance of their plans to make us Proper World Citizens; certainly we are failing most miserably to appreciate their subtle nuancity.
We just get the bill and the restrictions.
Update: Ed at HotAir has it exactly right
Obama didn’t even offer an original thought for spitballing. In his short presidency, Obama has had two responses to any issue: appoint a czar or create a commission. The auto industry got a czar, for instance, and the deficit that Obama’s spending has driven out of sight got a commission. Last night, Obama wanted to know he was taking this seriously by appointing a czar and a commission, the latter of which had been announced weeks ago. That was the sum total of his substantive response last night. Small wonder Obama chose an Oval Office speech rather than face another press conference.
During the 2008 campaign, we repeatedly criticized Obama’s lack of executive experience, but perhaps even Obama’s critics might be surprised to see how badly Obama has performed in this crisis. He has nothing left to offer; Obama is running on empty. In the face of a crisis that has unfolded for almost two full months, Obama chose to talk about wind turbines. A nation waited to see if a leader would emerge from the White House, and instead it got an absent-minded professor desperate to change the subject.
As I commented over there: we need a Churchill but all we got was a Barack Quixote.