“I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf,”
“I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick,”
And folks these were comments from an interview, not taken off the record, or by an unintended open mic. It is another example of the poor leadership and poor character exhibited by this President. He spends a lot of time blaming others instead of looking at what he can do to fix problems. Just last week he gave a speech blaming the past administration for the economy and the oil spill. Obama stated that de-regulation caused this spill, despite the fact that overall regulations increased during the last administration, and the fact that his Department of Interior regulators gave the rig a pass (to include the shutoff valve that failed) 10 days before the accident. The strong case that over regulation has pushed these oil companies into deep water instead of the more easily accessible onshore supplies is completely ignored.
So is any inward looking of the handling of this disaster. A recent poll showed that 70% of the public give the federal government poor marks on their handling of the spill. The reasons are numerous and obvious. Here are three.
- Louisiana requested 8 million feet of booms to block the oil…several weeks later less than a million was provided and these booms were put in the wrong locations
- Louisiana immediately requested permission to build barrier islands to protect its coast…the request was not granted until oil had already reached the coast
- There were hold ups in using dispersants and other methods to burn off the oil because of air pollution standards that could have been waived immediately to aid clean-up efforts
And then there are the leadership concerns. The command and control of these recovery operations has been questionable at best. Our supposed leader is blaming others and assigning commissions to look at the problem. He is using it as an opportunity to push cap and trade legislation and add more government regulations instead of smarter regulations. Luckily, the governor of Louisiana has pushed the federal government with his potential solutions. Without them the situation might be even worse. I guess we are lucky too that BP has the leadership, expertise and tools to try to fix the spill from their rig. As was very apparent from Obama’s press conference, our government does not. Hopefully this administration will see the plank in their own eye and learn from this experience as the Bush administration did during Katrina. So far I do not see it.
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This administration is on track to accomplish what it was hand picked to do. Usher in the collapse of the U.S. economy, the collapse of the $ and open the door to world currency and world government. This administration was appointed to be a one term administration.
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