Obama’s Suggestion; Plug The Damn Hole
May 26, 2010 Political
When Katrina hit the liberals went into high gear to blame George Bush and to slam the federal response. I have often written that the federal response did lack in some areas but it was not as bad as the liberals portrayed it. The bulk of the blame for the problems at the state and federal level went to Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco. Their missteps caused undue delay and made the federal response much more difficult.
Barack Obama promised not to forget the Gulf Coast when he was running for office. He told us that he remembered the storm and he would not forget the Gulf Coast implying that Bush had forgotten about it.
Why would he not give that impression? Bush was blasted for not going there right away, blasted for being on vacation, blasted for fundraisers, blasted for a slow response and accused of hating black people. The left painted this unfair picture and it stuck. It was deliberate and it played politics with the lives of those affected.
But Obama fairs no better. He has made one trip to the Gulf (I think Bush had visited the Gulf nearly 10 times by this time frame during Katrina), the federal response was slow, he went on a mini vacation after the disaster and he is going on another this weekend, and he is squeezing a fundraiser in as well.
Obama had no plans to go to the Gulf but has capitulated and will visit the area this Friday after he returns form a fundraiser today and then he will go to his home in Chicago for some time off. He is so worn out from his quest to destroy our nation that he will miss the Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day.
He will reportedly go to a cemetery in Illinois on Memorial Day. I hope his vacation is not interrupted too much.
Obama is getting hammered from the right (and now some of the left is chiming in) for the way he has responded to the Gulf oil spill. He is being held to the same standard that the left held Bush to during Katrina and to the standard he promised would be better than the one Bush had set.
Perhaps this is why Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called the media into the West Wing and scolded them for asking too many questions about the oil spill. I don’t recall the media letting up on the questions asked of Bush about Katrina and I am sure that the liberals kept asking questions. It is funny how things change when the ones who criticize are on the receiving end.
And Obama, who is very thin skinned, is not happy. He knows his messianic reputation is taking a hit. He knows he is teetering on being a failure in the eyes of the public because he knows what unfair accusations did to Bush. Obama participated in those accusations. He is getting tense by the day and is reported to have snapped, “Plug the damn hole.”
Gee, if only BP had thought of that…
And yes, I said unfair accusations. No occupant of the White House can slip into a phone booth and change into Superman and fix things. Bush could not swoop into New Orleans and fix things any more than Obama can swoop into the Gulf and fix things. Leaders have to rely on the people under them who have responsibility for things. Bush had to rely on a state and city that was led by incompetent boobs and who worsened the situation. Obama has to rely on the experts in the oil industry to fix the problem that the government is not equipped to take on. He had to rely on a decades old plan that ended up falling flat because required equipment was not in place. That plan was in place long before Obama (or Bush for that matter) was in office.
It sucks being the leader when the things that are supposed to be taken care of are not. It sucks when you get the blame for things out of your control.
But Obama was happy to criticize Bush and the response to Katrina. He was happy to pile on the unfair accusations and he was happy to say he would do better.
That is important to remember. He said he would do better and he has not. Whether the problems are his fault or not means nothing because he made promises he is now unable to keep.
And he is being held to the same standard that he held Bush to.
Liberals do not like it and Obama does not like it but you reap what you sow.
So while Obama is out at fundraisers and on vacation the Gulf remains in peril and the people there feel forgotten.
Even though they were promised that would change.
How is that Hope and Change working out for you now?
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: bp, Bush, fundraiser, gulf coast, katrina, Obama, oil spill, vacation
Barry Barry Quite Contrary
May 2, 2010 Political
There is a huge oil spill in the Gulf and though it is quite a disaster it is not a reason to stop drilling for oil. This is the first major oil spill in the Gulf in 40 years so it is not like this happens every day. It is terrible, make no mistake, but it would be even worse to stop drilling for oil because of it.
We are Americans and we do not stop because of a problem. We did not end space exploration when astronauts died, we did not cave to Japan after Pearl Harbor and we did not give up despite numerous setbacks during the Revolutionary war. We dig in, fix the problem, refine the process and make things better. That is what we do as Americans.
The Obama regime has halted new drilling until this disaster is assessed. Not a bad thing so long as the halt is temporary and Obama does not use it as an excuse to stop new drilling. And so long as this is not used as an excuse to nationalize the oil industry (why SWAT teams to the oil rigs).
It is interesting that coal and oil suffered big setbacks over the last month because coal and oil are the very forms of energy opposed by the regime.
But Obama has other things to worry about. He needs to ensure his legacy does not suffer a hit like Bush’s did during and after Katrina. That hurricane had not blown itself out before the left was declaring Bush’s efforts slow and disjointed. The left was busy blaming Bush for what happened (while ignoring the Democrats in Louisiana who held the lion’s share of the blame) and that hurricane haunted him the rest of his presidency.
Now Obama has to worry about being seen in the same light though he does not have to worry about it from the state run media or the left. They are content to give Barry a pass on his slow response.
Yes, Governor Jindal did not declare a state emergency until many days after the event but that might actually be because the oil did not threaten his state until then. The accident took place in international water and it would be up to the federal government to handle the issue though I do not blame them for waiting to see how the oil company handled the mess. However, once it became clear that this was bigger than first thought and that more resources would be required, it took the regime a good while to muster the resources.
Obama has put out information about the federal response to silence his critics but the reality is that it took more time than people would have liked. Is he finally seeing that sometimes it takes quite a while to muster resources? Perhaps the finger pointing he and his fellow Democrats did concerning Katrina is coming back to bite them in their behinds.
And Barry has been quite contrary. At first he was not going to the region though a trip was not ruled out. Then, not long after that announcement, we learned that he will visit the Gulf. Perhaps he did not want to be seen as a do nothing leader. Perhaps he did not want to be saddled with the same image painted of Bush.
Maybe he initially did not want to go because he felt he might get in the way and disrupt things. That was what Bush said about a trip to New Orleans during Katrina. Maybe Obama is worried about a picture of him in a plane being used to show that he flew over the problem, like the one used to paint Bush as unconcerned and out of touch.
Barack Obama is no more to blame for the oil spill than Bush was for the hurricane. Bush was roundly criticized for his response to Katrina and Obama might receive criticism as well. Let us see if he is held to the same standard by the state run media.
This is from an Obama for America publication about rebuilding New Orleans:
As president, Barack Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. And he will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.
Barack Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush administration’s “unconscionable ineptitude” in responding to Hurricane Katrina, Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.
Barack Obama swiftly responded by introducing legislation which then takes months to be debated and passed (if it even passes). Yep, there is swift for you. Obama talked about Bush’s “unconscionable ineptitude” in responding to Katrina but his response to the oil spill has been slower and, if we were to use the same grading criteria, displayed “unconscionable ineptitude.”
Barry is learning that governing is not as easy as he thought and that a nice smile and fancy rhetoric will only get you so far. He is also learning that when a politician makes promises and bashes others those words often come back to haunt said politician.
Is this Obama’s Katrina? Only time will tell but if we depend on the state run media the answer will of course be “No.”
I really don’t care what they want to call it. His response has been slow and lackluster and while the Gulf Coast is in real trouble, Obama was busy telling jokes…
You just know what the response would have been if it were a Republican.
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: gulf coast, jokes, katrina, louisiana, Obama, oil spill