We Deserve to Know...

No More Obama Magic?

With negative ratings and heavy criticism pouring from all sides of the aisle, it seems that President Obama's once safe zone, his rhetorical skills, have abandoned him when he is most vulnerable. The speech itself, under any other circumstances would have most likely have been regarded as adequate however, the nation elected a president who could deliver hair raising and stirring speeches on command. His latest speech, his first address to the nation from the Oval Office, dealt with the Gulf Oil Spill and with a sensational topic, a sensational speech was anticipated. He did not deliver. In his speech I took issue with three different points he made so lets delve deeper into each issue.

"That's why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nations best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge."

So originally I just wanted to copy and paste my comments from a previous post entitled 'Palin to Obama: Call', because this quote, taken directly from the Presidents speech is an outright and blatant lie and I already addressed this entire concept. As former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) pointed out, over 45 days into the oil spill and the President had neglected to even speak with BP CEO Tony Hayward until 57 days after the initial explosion. The rig sank on the twenty first and then 56 days later Obama met with the BP team. Hardly a speedy reaction. Not only that but he has still neglected to contact the people who worked and helped clean up the Exxon-Valdez spill in Alaska. That spill, prior to the current Gulf Spill, was the largest oil spill in US history so these people are the only ones who have any kind of experience with an event like this. These are the advisers and experts he should be assembling. Not the inexperienced and theory based team he has now gathered.

Insensitivity

Barack Obama the candidate always seemed engaged, charismatic, and sensitive to the issue people faced everyday. Yet the ability, whatever it was that assured people with his voice, has vanished, His statement about hurricanes was entirely insensitive and mean. The area affected, the Gulf Coast, is Katrina country. Katrina killed thousands, and destroyed the lively-hood of millions, something that the Gulf states are still dealing with. Katrina was a long lasting and entirely destructive event, you can not try to dismiss it as something that is one and done. That wasn't very well thought out.

Also, his comment and reference to NASA and the lunar landings was brave to say the least. I found it funny yet slightly insulting that he would dare praise the program he basically killed, as being quintessentially American. If that's not a slap in the face I don't know what is. He basically said, yes the manned space exploration program was as American as it gets, and we don't need it. I'm sorry but again, he could have rethought that, or at least, used a different metaphor. All this coupled with the glazed teleprompter look in his eyes (I swear one could probably read the teleprompter in the reflection in his eyes), just allowed for a very flat and uncaring and insensitive response to a horrible national disaster.

The Escrow Fund

Now the speech was conducted before Obama ever met with the BP officials and before the fund was set up. Yet in the speech he already committed to this fund, in principle. And just let me go on record as saying, making BP pay every cent for every bit of damage that this crisis has caused is an absolute must. They should have to pay everything and be utterly and entirely responsible and transparent in handling the situation. However, I do want to raise this issue. Where in any presidential power or constitutional power, doe sit ever show that this is legal in any sense of the word? No where, because its not. The last time something like this was tried was when the President Truman attempted a forced government takeover of factories that were on strike. Both the Congress and Supreme Court shouted him down because it was not legal. The President has no power to directly interfere as Obama has done in private industry. Congress on the other hand can, make them do it. Make Congress do its job, and will someone please educate the President on his powers and abilities.

My fear with what the escrow fund can do is that it will act as the catalyst that will allow and already overreaching executive branch to further step into the market place and take over private industry. Eventually businesses will stop operating her entirely for fear of the president and his seemingly limitless powers. The people must hold Obama in his place and elect a Congress and government that will actually respect the constitution.

I recently read in CNN that the reason Obama's speech was a failure was that it was written at too high of a grade level. According to literary analysts, the speech was written at a 9.8 grade level and that it was too complicated for its intended audience. Well its intended audience was the people of the United States and I take offense to basically being told we are to dumb to understand what the president said. A Harvard degree is great and all but Americans are not stupid and we can understand our leaders. We just don't like what we are hearing them say.

Later,
Cody

(Photo: Courtesy of the Associated Press)