Two historic events happened in the Gulf of Mexico this spring: Unimaginable amounts of accidental oil rose from a hole one mile below the water’s surface. Bigger than that, the federal government was exposed as the Wizard of Oz, unable to do anything about it.
In the movie, Dorothy and her friends in Oz admit the Wizard’s limits. Not here. After a century of faith in the government’s omnipotence, the discipleship can’t believe this is happening.
BP Oil spill is challenging Obama’s competence
As the oil gushed—with the perpetrator a flailing private corporation—the American left popped a gasket. James Carville thundered for presidential “control.” Spike Lee demanded that Mr. Obama “go off.” The left instead went off on Mr. Obama for not ordering his bureaucracies to make the oil recede. Then this week, like Will Ferrell in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, the president himself said he was looking for “ass to kick.” Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
This may well be Obama’s Katrina, but presidencies come and go. The more lasting lesson of the Gulf fiasco is to discover how belief in the omnipotence of government had risen to the level of mysticism for so many, and not just on the left. Some conservatives joined the do-something chorus to “stop” oil gushing with hellish force from deep inside the earth’s core. (Set aside for now the interesting matter of just how vast the reserves of oil actually are down there.)
Read More: By Daniel Henninger, WSJ
Tags: Barack Obama, competence, crisis management, government response, totoCity investors said the president was jeopardising the pensions of millions with his “excessive” criticism of the energy company following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Before the accident on April 20, BP was Britain’s biggest company, with a stock market value of £122 billion. Since then, £49 billion has been wiped off its value.
On Wednesday, BP’s share price fell a further 17.35p to 391.55p – representing a 40 per cent drop on the 655p price of a share two months ago.
Obama’s constant attacks on BP hurt British citizens
Experts have said that the clean-up costs of the oil spill will run to between £10 billion and £20 billion but the biggest cost to the company is from investors dumping stock for fear of BP being further punished by the US Government.
Those fears have been heightened by Mr Obama’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric towards BP, which some investors see as an attempt to deflect criticism of his own handling of the crisis. Last month, a White House spokesman said the President’s job was to keep his “boot on the throat” of the company.
In the past week, Mr Obama, who insists on referring to BP by its former name British Petroleum, has suggested that its chief executive, Tony Hayward, would have been sacked if he worked for him.
Read More: By Louise Armitstead and Myra Butterworth, UK Telegraph
Tags: attacks on BP, Barack Obama, BP pensionersWhen President Obama was asked by NBC’s Matt Lauer why he had not yet called the CEO of BP about the Gulf oil spill, he said he assumed CEO’s just told presidents things they wanted to hear.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had another answer.
Obama changes his tune
Gibbs said Obama hasn’t called CEO Tony Hayward because — according to what Gibbs called the "executive structure of corporate governance" — the CEO alone isn’t the final word on company decisions, which are made by the board of directors.
"Look, the CEO is elected by the board. Anything that the CEO wants to do has to be approved by the board," Gibbs said.
Later, he added: "I’m telling you, based on the corporate governance structure, in order to implement what — whatever you get from BP the CEO has to get clearance from the board to do. That’s — that’s the corporate governance structure is — is laid out."
So did that mean that Obama had picked up the phone to talk to some of these powerful board members?
No.
Read More: By Michael D. Shear, Washington Post
Tags: Barack Obama, BP CEO, Excuses, Lack Of communicationOver the heads of some of the sycophants in the mainstream media there appears to be the proverbial light bulb turning on. After sixteen months of the Obama presidency, questions are being asked about not only his competency, but what motivates this putative savior.
The current President of the United States, acting in a way that would make Nero proud, continues to fiddle while not only the United States burns, but the rest of the world begins to spin out of control. The economy and the financial future of the country are in shambles. The oil spill in the Gulf was allowed to spread with no plan, central authority, or leadership in place to prevent its destruction of the Gulf coast. American weakness and lack of resolve has sent a signal and emboldened our enemies to press their hegemonic strategy throughout the globe and to attack our allies, such as Israel.
The country is in this position because all President Obama wants to do, and is capable of doing, is half his job.
Read More: By Steve McCann, American Thinker
Tags: Barack Obama, half his job, kingBarack Obama has been compared to a lot of Presidents. Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, even George W. Bush. But no intrepid analyst has ever – so far as I know – dared to compare the 44th President to the 22nd (and 24th), Mr. Grover Cleveland.
And for good reason.
Obama expands the use of the bully pulpit to almost every area of life
Rotund, stern, and mustachioed when the style was a full beard – the Democrat Cleveland was not well loved, but he was well liked. He won the popular vote for President three times in a row, and is the only man to serve non-continuous terms in the White House. Cleveland was a "Bourbon Democrat." He hated the business trusts and he felt that the nation’s protectionist tariff policies had given rise to them. He stood for small and frugal government, lower taxes, and sound money – making him a tough fit with Barack Obama’s Democratic Party.
Cleveland and Obama also had different views on the role of the President. In his brief biography of Cleveland, historian Henry Graff writes:
Once, in his first year in office, when the Chicago White Stockings were in town for a game, (Cleveland) invited the team to the White House. He took the occasion to ask Cap Anson, the player-manager: "How’s my old friend ‘Pud’ Galvin [once the star pitcher for the Buffalo Bisons and now a Hall of Famer]? You know he and I were good friends when I was sheriff and mayor of Buffalo." But when Anson invited the president to the ballpark, Cleveland felt he had to say "no thank you." "What do you think the American people would think of me if I wasted my time going to a ball game?"
How times have changed:
President Barack Obama says the blown umpire’s call that cost a young Detroit Tigers’ pitcher a perfect game dramatizes the need for Major League Baseball to "take a look" at more instant replay.
Obama was asked in an NBC interview to comment on the incident involving umpire Jim Joyce and Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga. Joyce mistakenly called Cleveland’s Jason Donald safe at first base on what would’ve been the final out. While many Tigers argued, Galarraga merely smiled at his misfortune and went back to the mound.
In the interview broadcast Tuesday, Obama said he wouldn’t prejudge a review by MLB of the replay policy. And he said he thought Commissioner Bud Selig "made the right call" in not awarding a perfect game after the fact.
Oh good. I for one am glad to know what Mr. Obama thinks about instant replay in baseball. Such executive opinions are not mandated by Article II of the Constitution, but by gum they should be.
By virtue of his omnipresence, this President has given new meaning to the phrase "big government." He is everywhere. Try as you might, you cannot escape him. Mr. Obama has expanded the concept of the bully pulpit in ways we have never before seen. It is worth asking: in a country founded on the idea of limited government, is it good to have a President who appears to see no limits to what he can involve himself in?
Read More: By Jay Cost, Real Clear Politics
Tags: Barack Obama, baseball, Big Government, growing governmentTake a look back at the last few weeks, and it appears the White House is issuing new orders to federal agencies at a feverish pace.
There were this week’s instructions to find ways to trim at least 5 percent from agency budgets. Officials bragged this week that the number of Freedom of Information Act dropped last year because Obama told agencies to post more information online. Last week President he ordered agencies to extend more employment benefits to the partners of gay federal workers. He’s also mandated changes to the federal hiring process and there will be more later this week.
Barack Obama is issuing lots of memos
All of the changes have come through a series of memos — not executive orders or legislation — that the White House issued after months of review by lawyers and agency officials. (The budget memo with spending instructions comes every year, so it’s not a huge surprise.) The orders appear to provide the White House with quick and easy ways to demonstrate change. (Remember how often we used to hear that word?)
By mandating budget cuts, Obama can get ahead of Republicans likely to push for deep government spending cuts and federal salary freezes as the midterm elections continue. Extending benefits to the gay partners of federal workers scores him points with liberals, gay rights activists and a generally supportive American public and helps meet his goal of making government a "cool" employer. Attempts to speed up the mundane federal hiring process also help achieve the "cool" goal and Obama’s desire to attract a new wave of public servants.
Read More: By Ed O’keefe, Washington Post
Tags: Barack Obama, federal agencies, Regulatory MemosThree days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch government offered to help.
It was willing to provide ships outfitted with oil-skimming booms, and it proposed a plan for building sand barriers to protect sensitive marshlands.
The response from the Obama administration and BP, which are coordinating the cleanup: “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” said Geert Visser, consul general for the Netherlands in Houston.
Obama and Biden were too busy to take the Dutch up on their offer to help
Now, almost seven weeks later, as the oil spewing from the battered well spreads across the Gulf and soils pristine beaches and coastline, BP and our government have reconsidered.
U.S. ships are being outfitted this week with four pairs of the skimming booms airlifted from the Netherlands and should be deployed within days. Each pair can process 5 million gallons of water a day, removing 20,000 tons of oil and sludge.
At that rate, how much more oil could have been removed from the Gulf during the past month?
Read More: By LOREN STEFFY, Chron
Tags: Barack Obama, hard at work, ignored Dutch offers of assistanceBritish business on Wednesday expressed alarm at the “inappropriate” and in-creasingly aggressive rhetoric being deployed against BP by President Barack Obama, warning that the attacks on the oil company could affect energy security and damage wider transatlantic industry relations.
Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI, a leading British employers’ organisation, told the FT the presidential attack was “obviously a matter of concern – politicians getting heavily involved in business in this way always is”.
Obama points the finger at BP
He suggested the White House strategy was misplaced, stating that “apart from anything else, BP is a vital part of the US energy infrastructure. So the US has an interest in the welfare of BP, as much as the rest of the world does.”
Miles Templeman, director general of the Institute of Directors, said he was “very concerned – this sort of political rhetoric is inappropriate.” Mr Templeman emphasised that British business appreciated the gravity of the Deepwater Horizon spill and the environmental damage being wreaked on the gulf coast. But he warned: “There is a danger that this will become a British business thing and there will be a prejudice against British companies because of it. The issue should be decided outside politics.”
Read More: By Jean Eaglesham, Financial Times
Tags: Barack Obama, Blame game, BP, finger pointingThe deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president’s earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.
There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama’s pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans’ leader, a man of them, for them, the nation’s voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn’t lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.
Most American values are foreign to this President
Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.
A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House.
One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.
Read More: By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ, WSJ
Tags: Alien, Barack Obama, Foreign Values, out of touch, White HouseDaniel Ellsberg, legendary leaker of the “Pentagon Papers” in 1971, still has a bone to pick with the White House. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the 79-year-old, legendary peace activist accuses President Obama of betraying his election promises — in Iraq, in Afghanistan and on civil liberties.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Ellsberg, you’re a hero and an icon of the left. But we hear you’re not too happy with President Obama anymore.
Daniel Ellsberg: I voted for him and I will probably vote for him again, as opposed to the Republicans. But I believe his administration in some key aspects is nothing other than the third term of the Bush administration.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How so?
Ellsberg: I think Obama is continuing the worst of the Bush administration in terms of civil liberties, violations of the constitution and the wars in the Middle East.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: For example?
Ellsberg: Take Obama’s explicit pledge in his State of the Union speech to remove “all” United States troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. That’s a total lie. I believe that’s totally false. I believe he knows that’s totally false. It won’t be done. I expect that the US will have, indefinitely, a residual force of at least 30,000 US troops in Iraq.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You doubt not only Obama’s missions abroad but also his politics back home in the US. Why exactly are you accusing the president of violating civil liberties?
Ellsberg: For instance, the Obama administration is criminalizing and prosecuting whistleblowers to punish them for uncovering scandals within the federal government …
Read More: Der Spiegel
Tags: Barack Obama, Bush 3, Daniel Ellsberg
