When the President gave his first address from the Oval
Office Tuesday night, I was surprised the networks weren’t
running a live feed of the Gulf oil spill in the corner of the
screen.
Not only because they are almost always running that live
feed, but because it would be a perfect image of what has been
happening for almost 60 days now. Oil has been flowing out of a
hole at the bottom of the sea at an astronomical rate, and the
President has been talking. Just talking.
Even in his speech Tuesday night, he started by telling the
American people what he had directed BP to do. But where is the
action?
He said that there are 3,000 oil cleanup workers in four
states and 1,000 ships — but he didn’t say that he sent them. He
said there are over 17,000 National Guard troops there, but those
are the National Guard troops belonging to the Gulf states (of
which there are over 50,000 troops) and acting under their
governors’ leadership. And nonetheless, where are the results of
all this effort? Oil is spilling out at higher rates than ever
before.
The President used this Oval Office speech to create more
theatrics, which has characterized his presidency, when it should
be about sound policy and executive action.
President Obama has tried to turn this oil spill into his
September 11. Going so far as to analogize this catastrophe to
the attack on our country in 2001. His Oval Office speech used
war metaphors to talk about the spill and what we must do.
This is not war; this is something that a president should
have been able to contain a month ago. And if you couldn’t
contain it, he should have at least been able to clean up the oil
on the surface as it accumulated. It is scary to think we have
the strongest military in the world, but we can’t even use our
ships and equipment to sop up oil.
It is clear that this President was a great candidate; but
he is not a great president. In his speech last night he tried to
remind the American public of how much they loved him way back
when – he was like a toddler trying to regain his mother’s
approval. “When I was a candidate for this office,” the President
said — but how about now, when you are
President?
The President, time after time again, tried to become
Barack Obama the beloved candidate. He talked about future policy
and said that we need a long-term Gulf restoration plan “ASAP.”
No — we don’t need a long-term plan ASAP, we need to clean
up the spill ASAP. Once again, this President is not
governing, he is campaigning.
He also emphasized the importance of creating a commission
to examine the cause of the spill to once again highlight the
finger-pointing he has done from the beginning. Creating this
commission should be the subject matter of a speech after the oil
is contained. For now, STOP THE SPILL. Then worry about who
started it.
The President told the American people that Interior
Department Secretary Ken Salazar had made cleaning up the
corruption in his department a top priority. Then he announced
that he and the Secretary are now going to replace management in
the corrupt Mineral Management Service. It seems that had it been
a top priority, it would have been seen to when the President
took office a year and a half ago. Here was again the President
was pretending to have a policy – he was campaigning.
The President concluded his speech by talking about future
policies. Putting aside the fact that he is once again using this
disaster to campaign for his agenda, he said, “The one approach I
will not accept is inaction.”
Well, Mr. President, lead by example. Because the only
approach to cleaning up the oil spill we have endured is
inaction. It’s time to stop talking and start leading.
