More on BP, Obama

Sorry Chris, didn't mean to steal your thunder by one-upping your post. Readers, know that there is a post right below this one that is also deserving of comment. Anyway, I just read a piece from Peggy Noonan in the WSJ and wanted to share a few quotes from it that I thought were fair. Although she leans somewhat to the right, Noonan is pretty moderate politically, and she'll tell it like it is. She's not afraid at calling out the right or the left when either are out of line. So when I want to get a glimpse into the mind of the more middle-of-the-political-road folks, it's refreshing to read her stuff.

Anyway, this is kind of a follow-up to Creighton's last post about the BP slick. Obama gave a prime-time speech to address the federal response to the spill, which I consciously decided not to watch, preferring instead to read the transcript online the next day. I'm not the only one who made the switch. Obama's TV audience went from 48 million in the State of the Union (Jan.) to 32 million this week. Here are a couple quotes from Noonan's column that I thought were fair and insightful:

"It isn't Mr. Obama's fault that an oil rig blew in the Gulf and a gusher resulted. He already had two wars and the great recession. But the lack of adequate federal government response appropriately redounds on him. In a Wall Street Journal investigation published Thursday, reporters Jeffrey Ball and Jonathan Weisman wrote the federal government at first moved quickly, but soon "faltered." "The federal government, which under the law is in charge of fighting large spills, had to make things up as it went along." It hadn't anticipated a spill this big. The first weekend in May, when water was rough, contractors hired by BP to lay boom "mostly stayed ashore," according to a local official. "Shrimpers [the "small people"] took matters into their own hands, laying 18,000 feet of boom," compared to about 4,000 feet by BP's contractors."

And now, some speech reaction from Obama's normal cheerleaders:

"The administration's failure to take impressive action after the spill dinged its reputation for competence. The president's failure to turn things around Tuesday night with a speech damaged his reputation as a man whose rhetorical powers are such that he can turn things around with a speech. He lessened his own mystique. Reaction among his usual supporters was, in the words of Time's Mark Halperin, "fierce, unforeseen disappointment." Dan Froomkin of the Huffington Post called the speech "profoundly underwhelming," a "feeble call to action." Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich called the speech "vapid." Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times said the president looked "awkward and robotic." MSNBC's Keith Olbermann famously said "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days." Chris Matthews scored "a lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk." Mr. Olbermann, on Mr. Obama's well-written peroration: "It's nice but, again, how? Where was the 'how' in this speech when the nation is crying out for 'how'?"

On empty sternness:

"And when speaking of why proper precautions and safety measures were not in place, the president sternly declared, "I want to know why." But two months in he should know. And he should be telling us. Such empty sternness is . . . empty."

Finally, good insight into what has been, for me, perhaps the one aspect of the Obama Presidency that has been most irritating:

"There is still a sense about Mr. Obama that he needs George W. Bush in order to give his presidency full shape and meaning. In this he is like Jimmy Carter, who needed Richard Nixon, or rather the Watergate scandal, which made him president. Mr. Carter needed Richard Nixon standing in the corner looking like he'd spent the night sleeping in his suit as it hangs in the closet. The image is from Joe McGinnis's "The Selling of the President, 1968." Mr. Carter needed to be able to point at Nixon and say, "I'm not him. He dirty, me clean. You hate him, like me." Carter's presidency was given coherence and meaning by Nixon, Watergate, and without it that presidency seemed formless. Mr. Obama, in the same way, needs Mr. Bush standing in the corner like Boo Radley, saying "Let's invade something!" But Mr. Bush is wisely back home in Texas finishing a book, and the president never sounds weaker than when he suggests his predicament is all his predecessor's fault. Mr. Obama needs Mr. Bush in the corner and doesn't have him. That's part of why he looks so alone out there."

My thought is that while Obama undoubtedly inherited a tough situation, no one likes a whiner or a complainer. Noonan's right, the more Obama blames Bush (not that he has done that relating to BP, at least not that I'm aware of), the weaker he looks. I think America would respond much better to a President who at least comes off as someone who rolls up his sleeves and gets down to work, solves the problem first, and asks questions later - even though the slick isn't his fault - instead of pointing fingers, waiting around, figuring out "whose ass to kick" and hoping that BP will handle everything. I think Obama could learn a lesson from the the "small people" shrimp farmers in that regard.

Here's a link to her entire column: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575313181930072638.html

What do you guys think?

State of the Union

I'm just curious to hear everyone's reaction to the President's speech. I know there are political junkies out there who watched it or at least read the transcript, so let's hear what you think ...