Wednesday, June 16, 2010

57 days later, a spill of a speech
Obama to nation: Let's all enjoy a piece of pie in the sky!


WASHINGTON, DC—My fellow conservatives and voter’s remorse liberals won’t like my initial reaction to President Obama’s speech last night: It was a good speech. The language was unambiguous but I do have one criticism of it, when I woke up this morning and tuned into the news, the spill was still gushing!

In spite of the Professor-in-Chief’s wonderful someday, everybody will surf to work in space-age vehicles that use no fuel speech, the damn hole hasn’t been plugged. Disappointing to say the least—this is quintessential Obama—talk about the situation, ruminate over all of the advances and strides we’ll make in the future and let’s call it a day.

I also found the speech to reflect another glaring characteristic of Mr. Obama—a disconnect from reality. He said the government has been there in the Gulf of Mexico from day one and he takes full responsibility for the actions of the federal government, but then asserts the government will bring all of its resources to bear to combat the crisis. He stated that the Minerals and Mining Service, a government agency, was plagued with corruption and problems. His solution? Have another bureaucracy oversee that bureaucracy while a government official cleans up the bureaucracy that let BP get away with murder.

Of course, the problem with the MMS bureaucracy was there before he even took the oath of office (psst, I didn’t want to say anything, but the last president let the MMS get “too cozy” with the companies they’re supposed to regulate). My solution is to regulate the most heavily regulated industry in the country and the federal government is just the entity to do it, never mind the fact I just bashed it.

What was conspicuous by its absence was any solution to the current problem—the gush of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. Speaking about what new technologies will be available in the future and how the administration is going to push for alternative energy sources, along with cleaning up oil that hasn’t yet come up and punishing BP monetarily doesn’t show leadership.

I suspect the president will get a bump in the polls for his speech, and it was a good speech. But the words will disappear into thin air while the oil bubbles up for weeks to come. Good speech, now let’s do something about it.



-- Owen E. Richason
Chief Editor, Killswitch Politick






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