Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Obama and the Oil Spill

The much-hyped speech from the Oval Office by the President came and went last night, leaving me totally unimpressed. Same old lame talking points, with no action to report. And, as expected, he made his plug for "Cap and Tax", using some other name that he evidently felt would be more palatable to the American public. This speech was so empty that even the main stream media, normally loyal supporters of the President, had a hard time coming up with something good to say about it. Of course, Fox News tore it to shreds, but I was expecting that. Of all the comments I heard, I think the best response came from Sarah Palin, reporting from Alaska. As you know, she took on Big Oil in her state and won the battle. She said she learned early that you can't believe everything a big powerful company will tell you. She found out that her regulators were too cozy with the oil companies and weren't doing their job. So, she fired some people and set the agenda for policies going forward. Then she made it clear that the oil companies had to perform correctly or they would no longer be doing business in her state. Oddly enough, in spite of all the criticism leveled at her since the 2008 campaign, she is the only one in the pool who has the executive experience to deal with the situation in which we find ourselves regarding the oil leak. Those of you who think she is just a ditsy airhead with a sing-song delivery would have been surprised last night. She said her piece through clenched teeth (and no smile) and left no doubt that she thought things have been mishandled so far. If Obama really wanted some answers, he would reach out and try to get Sarah to work with him in solving this oil leak problem. I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Oh, by the way, Obama did the next best thing - he put a lawyer in charge to be his point man. Evidently there were no oil experts available.

And then today he had a meeting with the executives from BP. With all his boisterous talk leading up to the meeting, what did he get? A twenty billion dollar escrow fund that BP had already agreed to beforehand. Big deal!!

Well, my view is that this problem should have been handled a lot differently. I think that on about day two (after the fires were put out and the dead and injured were accounted for), the best and brightest of the U.S. government should have sat down with the BP people and said, "What can we do to help, and how can we work together to get this leak stopped?" I'm sure that course would have been more productive than Obama's endless bad-mouthing of BP. And I believe I would have put the requests of the respective governors on the fast track to save the wetlands and the beaches. I hate to use the words of the pundits, but they fit. The dithering, the interference, and the incompetence have extracted a very heavy toll.