Jumping the shark: "Obama failed to act like a chief executive tonight"

[Karmadillo]

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/015100.php

Tuesday :: Jun 15, 2010
Jumping the Shark

Barack Obama set a challenge for himself tonight. After mishandling the federal government’s response to BP’s negligence, the president’s job tonight was to give the public confidence that he and his administration were taking charge of the debacle, and fully aware of what needed to be done, at a time when the public wanted exactly that.

Yet Obama failed to act like a chief executive tonight, opting instead for a dry sermon about energy policy and prayer. All the while, the speech avoided leadership, a sense of command, and vision. Rather, it seemed simply to serve as an opportunity for Obama to repeat whatever he’s said over the last six weeks, and then move on, just as the White House confirmed privately. Aside from some lame talk about holding BP responsible, he still managed to downplay the current crisis, in a rush to the future without dealing with current accountability.

Just like he treats the Bush administration.

Even as he said the "federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation's history", he didn’t say a word about protecting the workers who have been negligently sent out to clean this up without protection, and not a word was said about holding BP accountable for the numerous safety violations it commits daily.

Not a word was said about the public health and safety crisis caused by this spill and BP’s lack of attentiveness to this emerging calamity.

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Instead, the president used six paragraphs to talk about hope and prayer, which is not likely to inspire anyone’s confidence that the federal government knows the way forward. His speech seemed weak and reactive; it made the federal government and his administration look impotent, overmatched, and even more faith-based in its modus operandi than the Bush administration ever did.

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