The latest drumbeat is that Barack Obama isn't engaged enough concerning the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which is decimating plant and animal life along the Louisiana and Alabama coasts. It now threatens Florida and possibly the Atlantic seaboard. The argument goes that Obama hasn't shown anger, or he hasn't shown compassion, or he hasn't done enough to "plug the damn hole". I have a problem with this. This is a disaster of the nth magnitude, and it isn't in one man's power to fix it. Oh, yes, he could show more engagement than he has. And he could be a little less politically tone deaf and lay off the parties and the rounds of golf while this is happening. But really, there is nothing he himself can do to go plug the damn hole. Do we expect him to put on a diving suit and descend to 5000 feet and cap the out of control well? Of course not.
The current and growing backlash at Obama himself, however, is of his own making. George Bush could no more stop a category 5 hurricane from destroying New Orleans, a city built BELOW the water level of two great bodies, than Barack Obama can cap an out of control oil well. Yet Obama and the Democrats hammered away at Mr. Bush relentlessly about Mr. Bush's inability to stop that disaster. They portrayed him as a man not up to the job of the presidency if he couldn't handle Katrina's destruction. So Mr. Obama and the Democrats are the ones who set the bar so high that now even things beyond the president's control are considered the president's responsibility. So, looking at it from that perspective, Mr. Obama deserves all the negative press he is now getting concerning his inability to do anything about this catastrophe. It is his Katrina, but only because he defined it that way.
Oh, one other thing. Is the aftermath of Katrina now fixed because Obama became president? Of course not. Do you know how much of the $700 BILLION stimulus bill was earmarked for rebuilding New Orleans? You got it--$0! So, in his bashing of Bush and all that followed, Obama not only set the bar so high that he is now feeling the wrath of the people (and the media--finally!), but he has shown himself to be a hypocrite who can get elected shouting about someone's inability to repair the damage from a natural disaster, but who then does nothing about it himself.
We don't expect Obama to "put on a diving suit" and go fix the well. We expect him to lead--isn't that what presidents do? He hasn't shown any leadership at all. Now all of a sudden he's trying to make a big show of it, but people see through his desperate sham. He doesn't really care as long as he gets to fly around on Air Force One eating cheeseburgers and partying at the White House with Paul McCartney.
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