Obama and the oil spill: why would anyone expect leadership from him in this crisis?
Even many of Obama’s supporters have became impatient with his lack of energetic leadership on the Gulf oil spill.
But why would they have expected any different? Obama has almost never shown that characteristic—and he’s been praised for that fact in the past.
One prominent example was his passivity on the financial meltdown during his candidacy. While John McCain seemed to buzz around like an angry fly trying (impotently, it turns out) to solve things and tackle problems and act, Obama’s perceived calm caused people to praise his coolness and first-class temperament.
The right has always thought little of Obama. But as coolness has morphed to coldness, and restraint has come to seem paralysis, even liberals and the left are frustrated with him. Obama has never successfully run a bake sale, let alone a country. Nor has he shown leadership or executive abilities (except in the service of his own career advancement; that he’s very good at)—even in the absence of a crisis, much less during one.
Did his supporters think there are no special executive skills involved in being president? That giving speeches and looking cool were attributes that would be transferable to handling an environmental disaster and coordinating the response to it? That anyone could do it?
Perhaps so. After all, stupidhead Bush dealt with 9/11, so how hard could it all be?
[NOTE: The Hillbuzz guys ask an excellent question.
And here’s a piece that details Obama’s schedule since the oil spill crisis. He hasn’t exactly focused like a laser on it.]
[ADDENDUM: The Anchoress has a good roundup of oil spill news.]
“stupidhead” Stupidhead?
No more insults taken from Ding-Dong School. Thank you.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “Even though you carry a stilleto, you are far too nice.“
vanderleun: haven’t you ever heard the old saying, “Speak softly and carry a small stiletto”? A stiletto’s a lot easier to conceal than a big stick.
From te zHillbuzz link;
“Ideology is thicker than oil” – Good
“My administration takes responsibility” = “I’m looking for someone I can throw under the bus” – even better
Labeling Obama as “Dr. Utopia the Lightbringer” – Priceless
A seasoned President/leader (or someone who cared) would:
1. Take over incident management. Bring together all relevant agencies and organizations, including private companies, to handle the two critical issues—clean up/containment and capping the leak. Instead of doing this BO and his team have drifted for more than forty days and allowed BP to be in charge. BP is interested in only one thing (understandably)—saving its corporate ass. That priority is not necessarily the priority of the American people.
2. Mobilize all military and civilian engineering resources to tackle the clean up/containment and capping of the leak.
3. Request and coordinate assistance from other nations/companies with experience in offshore drilling operations. I understand why other oil companies are not going to rush to the aid of a competitor. That’s why the Federal Government can play a role.
4. Create and sustain a sense of urgency about the response to the incident.
This is a boy in a man’s body. He is inexperienced, emotional, thin skinned and drowning.
“Did his supporters think there are no special executive skills involved in being president? “
No. That’s the point, they didn’t ‘think’ and many of them (Obama @ 40% approval rating) still aren’t thinking.
Their view is based in feelings and when they no longer feel that Obama is competent, when they simply don’t feel that Obama can blame Bush credibly…say when its Christmas and the oil is threatening New England… then, they’ll turn away from him, depressed that once again, their faith in their leaders was misplaced.
And, “I’ll get on my knees and pray / We don’t get fooled again” (The Who)
Unfortunately, there’s no cure for stupid.
“”Did his supporters think there are no special executive skills involved in being president?””
In a nutshell, yes thats exactly what they thought. He’s more like a Mr America to these people. Just look good hosting dignitaries and giving flowery speeches. Take good photos for the whitehouse lawn easter egg hunt. Have really cool rap artist over for dinner.
The scary part is if Barak Obama were gone today, those 53% of Americans are still here.
First, Barack’s supporters ABSOLUTELY DO think there are no particular skills (beyond a propensity for greed, heartlessness, and criminality) involved in being an effective executive. Success is luck, dontcha know. Corporations are evil. It is the same anti Hayek thinking which discounts diverse expertise which is spread across large populations; the same anti Hayek thinking in which Barack takes refuge: intelligent persons know best, and can and should make a vast quantity of decisions, i.e. can and should run everything.
Second, re Hillbuzz question about who would best respond to the oil spill crisis:
Sarah Palin would, and that’s why she’s a legitimate candidate for POTUS.
Naturally, it’s fine if people don’t want to vote for Palin. I might prefer Jindal.
However, some degree of conservative opposition to Palin is about class. It’s about whether or not a Harry Truman can be a good POTUS, and whether or not a Harry Truman type ought be given that chance over an Ivy League type. The unspoken assertion: why risk POTUS to a graduate of Univ. of Idaho who has no formal advanced degrees? We have such a better chance of success if we vote in a person of elite education and status.
But, do we REALLY have a better chance of success? Palin boasts an outstanding record of personal accomplishment. Is a rise through elite education and elite social markers truly indicative of a better prepared person?
The oil spill shows why Palin deserves consideration as POTUS. She has been a productive accomplisher her entire life; has been an imperfect yet shrewd operator her entire life. What conservative doubts that she would be all over the problem? that she would use her executive skills and her gumption to bring together the most effective people to work the problem on multiple fronts? Even if you think you dislike Palin as POTUS, you still suspect she would work the heck out of the oil spill problem. What recent POTUS candidates would work the problem as effectively? Not many, if any.
Agree…But there is a worrying aspect in Palin’s new approach: she has fallen into the trap of making abortion a centerpiece and trying to rebrand “feminism” into a conservative mantra. Eww and blech!
One more thing: what other POTUS candidate might work the oil spill problem effectively? Look to the man who rescued the Salt Lake Olympics from disorganized disaster: Mitt Romney. Here is a man with demonstrated capability: outstanding executive experience, an outstanding record of accomplishment, and lots of energy. Romney would work the problem with skill and excellence.
Pablo:
what do social issues have to do with the oil spill?
what do social issues have to do with belief in limited government, low taxes, reduced spending, strong national defense?
Maybe you didn’t intend it, but I see this a lot in persons on the left (not that you are on the left) who are arguing against conservatives: they attempt to shift the conversation from a higher plane to a lower plane. They argue as if the abortion question is as important as higher plane issues. I am staunchly pro life, and am not shy about saying so in public. However, abortion is down my list of concerns when considering a POTUS. It’s a lower plane issue. I would enthusiastically support a pro choice candidate who believed in limited government.
Non-action will serve to show the world the evil of the oil corporations. The people’s candidate who made 5m will show the capitalist pigs the what for. All the children with graying temples and love handles who thought voting for the cool black guy was going to usher in a thousand years of utopia sweat increasingly as the patina wears off this swine. Besides, who the hell goes to the Gulf?, people from “The South”. Hillary Clinton made it clear during the campaign that they could do it without the Southern states. If this was Vineyard Haven shit would be happening, Nashville and the Redneck Riviera can go to hell.
gcthorn,
Point taken…I did said worrying, not all encompasing and final. Palin’s recent actions of supporting women and embracing her gender are definitely putting her on the right track. If she can speak out on the issues (all issues, Social included)impacting all women — on common ground — she may be unstoppable in 2012! Are you sure you’re not shy about your pro-life stance? (
Pablo,
re pro life
A person can be assertively pro life and yet be humble about being pro life. Many people do exactly that, and far more effectively than my sorry attempts at it.
Why is abortion a lower plane issue? A lot of Americans die every year, and for a variety of unnecessary reasons: unhealthy diet, traffic accidents – even bad highway signage results in many unnecessary deaths. Reducing abortion is important, yet is not the be all end all solution to reducing the numbers of unnecessary deaths, and we ought keep that in perspective. IMO, the left is far more exercised over the abortion issue, possibly b/c they can’t stand the thought of lost liberty (which is understandable), and also b/c they believe the issue is a political weapon which helps their side. It’s an issue on the right, yet smart persons on the right realize that limited government is a more effective path to reduced death and suffering than is reduced incidences of abortion. Which is not to say the right ought not work to reduce instances of abortion. But is to say abortion is a lower plane issue.
BTW, I don’t understand why conservative politicians don’t address the abortion issue exactly as I did above. It’s a more effective way to address the issue, imo.
oh, no, Greg, not Romney again.
Romney=MA Healthcare, i.e.: bankrupt. That’s all his executive experience i need to know.
Greetings, lovely Tatyana!
I was speaking of Romney being an effective executive for addressing a crisis such as the oil spill.
However, I do also like Romney as a candidate. Re MA Healthcare: could Romney have learned his lesson? I hope so. 🙂
Yours truly, January 7, 2009:
Obama’s executive experience is either (a) so slight as to merit little notice, or (b) so bad as to require assignment to the memory hole, or (c) both. In a country and world rife with crises of all kinds, is Obama actually prepared to be the top decision-maker of the US federal government? And what will it take to show us whether he is? And why in the world are these considerations still to be pondered after his election?
http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/2009_01/ind_005643.html
*blush-blush*
Hi, Greg.
I would be more inclined to consider Romney if he gave any indication that indeed he learned the lesson. So far, I don’t remember any opposition from him personally during the National Healthcare bill, and I don’t recall any statements from him to that extent afterward.
I think he’s one of those “business as usual”, golf-club-buddies Republicans. I might be mistaken, but that’s my impression.
Those two particular Republican candidates, Palin and Romney both have great strengths but some real weaknesses. As did Churchill, for example, or Nixon, or Jefferson, or any number of notable figures. What circumstances they face has a lot to do with whether they succeed.
The delay in action (or as stated by Neo as leadership) in the face of crisis…with the noticeable exceptions being similar in context as his comments against officer Crowley over the arrest of Henry Gates…has me wondering if he is more waiting for instructions than he is “thoughtfully” weighing options.
He’s shown time and time again that his extemporaneous speaking capabilities suffer from issues with accuracy, context, and clarity so I don’t see him rallying the people around any significant issues on the spur of the moment.
I’m not so sure our Dr. Utopia isn’t more than a mouthpiece for those who have everything to gain from the dismantling of our Republic.
Call me paranoid…
This attitude was painfully apparent when JFK Jr. won his Darwin Award. Message boards featured much lamenting and tearing of garments over the loss of a “great leader.” Great leader? WTF? A pretty boy with a room temperature IQ and the judgment of a drunken sailor in a strip joint on payday …a “great leader?” Scary. But he would have fulfilled the criteria you outlined above, and apparently that’s good enough for some.
For my part, I’d rather have a Duane Doberman look-alike who had a track record of success as an executive, and hire some actor to do the PR stuff.
“The scary part is if Barak Obama were gone today, those 53% of Americans are still here.” SteveH
Very true, though that 53% is not monolithic.
Perhaps half are hard left/true believers. The other half are a mix of the useful idiots, left-leaning independents and the politically semi-apathetic who are the American idol worshipers, the ones for whom looking good, hosting dignitaries and giving flowery speeches are all that is required.
The hard left/true believers value shared ideology in the Presidential choice. The other half of that 53% value empathy, the President must ‘feel their pain’, he must care…and deeply.
Obama has failed the litmus test of empathy. The Dowd perspective. He’s failing the litmus test of the ability to implement the ideology, the competence issue.
We’re witnessing the self-creation of a lame-duck President. He’s morphing before our eyes from Dr Utopia the Lightbringer into uncaring, ineffectual incompetent national embarrassment.
I’m hoping we can live with that.
Ernest Hemingway said “Never mistake movement for action.” In Obama’s case, we might add, ” Never mistake cool for competence.”
It would be foolish to expect any president to be a master of the technical aspects of most of the crises they will confront. But we do not hire–so to speak–a president to be a technician, but to be a manager of people. In this, we have hired a man with no management experience at all, a man whose only adult experience has been running for the next highest political office. Now that he’s attained what is arguably the highest political office the world has to offer, he seems utterly befuddled. And why should we expect anything else? In one of his two ghost-written pseudo autobiographies, Obama admitted that as a “community organizer” he could not tell even his close friends what he actually did for a living. This is not gold plated resume material.
Add the ingredients of malignant narcissism, hatred of America and Americans, and an absolutely unswerving belief in marxist policies and we find ourselves in a hole deeper than that currently gushing oil.
“”Perhaps half are hard left/true believers. The other half are a mix of the useful idiots””
Thats probably right. But all 53% fall in the category of a massive lack of wisdom and critical thinking. Imagine the difficulty they will cause if calamities a hundred times greater than the gulf oil spill befall us. We have never been so vulnerable. And it’s not the government so much as the people.
Obama may be the single best argument against affirmative action and guilt laden racial politics. And, in some sense, luck.
Steddie H, 4:57 . . .
I don’t think you’re paranoid. Obama acts like he’s awaiting instructions. But from who?
. . . from “whom”?
I think we are reading Obama wrong by attributing to him motives and character that would fall into the “normal” range.
Thus, a normal President would want to do anything possible as quickly as possible the get the damn well capped, or the oil vacuumed or the berms built, etc. He want to do this for the economy, the ecology, for sheer decency and for his poll numbers. All of that would be fine.
But in every case Obama does what can do the most harm. His “normal” is hatred of America and at his very best indifference to Americans. If he is not doing harm to the nation, he is having, for him, a bad day.
Conscience or unconscious, who knows. I have seen tons of evidence to prove my theory since before O was inaugurated – and a grand total of zero evidence showing that he actually likes (let alone loves) the country he is President of. He can’t even fake talking good about America. He can’t even come close to faking care about America.
Put a Saudi King before him though….he’s a beaming school boy.
We have, I am certain of it, a Manchurian President.
In the novels, they always catch the bad guy. In real life, sometimes the bad guy wins. We’ll have to see how this one turns out in the end, but right now the bad guy is king of the so-called free world and Tyrant in Chief of the USA.
Soros, I keep tellin’ ya!
I am perfectly satisfied with his response. He explains what he has done if you want to listen (it sounds pretty extensive to me, though I am not omniscient like the commenters on here, so I could be mistaken):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/01/a-full-and-vigorous-accounting-events
I like that he doesn’t get hysterical like you guys and the ‘MSM’ you so love to hate.
Thinking about it though, I wasn’t that mad at Bush during Katrina either, even though there seemed to be much more grounds for anger there than there is here.
Mike, I’m with ya. Following Artfldgr’s suggestion, I’ve been reading “The Sword and the Shield,” regarding the Mitrokhin archives. It’s hard not to see the parallels between Buraq’s miraculous ascension and the KGB’s operations in a variety of countries. The only puzzle is how and why the phenomenon continues after the demise of the USSR. Homegrown Reds, who outlived their spiritual homeland?
No.
Consider the reaction if Bush had spent 44 days getting around to Katrina, between taking several vacations, attending fundraisers, and a few bogus feel-good conferences. Even Jon Stewart and Chris Mathews are dumping on the Messiah for his incompetence.
mikemcdaniel said it would be foolish to expect a man to be master of all the technical aspects of the crisis they will face. That is certainly true, but he should at least try to understand. I don’t have the feeling that Obama values understanding; I think he turns off when he has acquired the necessary info to spin at a press conference. One reason he constantly dumps on Bush is that he never gave much thought to understanding what confronted Bush during his presidency. He seems surprised that there are really complex problems in the world and blames everyone for not presenting him a world that he could turn into utopia with a few speeches and policy tweaks. He offered the team of rivals as his approach to the presidency, but I doubt that he understood the burden Lincoln felt. I don’t think he ever tried to understand that leaders have to choose between bad and less bad. So we got team of rivals as a facile management strategy without any insight that managing such a team requires a solid core of tested values, not a finger in the wind. Obama has failed in far more than technical aspects of probems he faces. He has failed to understand the basic requirement of his job. He is a kid with a Lego set who thinks he knows how to build a skyscraper.
“I am perfectly satisfied with his response. He explains what he has done if you want to listen (it sounds pretty extensive to me…”
Aww, you’re so right.
Let’s give Barack a permanent vaction. The man has had no rest. None. Zippo. No vacation. No time playing golf. No romantic dates in New York City with his wife. Don’t believe for a moment the reports that Barack has played more golf in one year than George W. Bush did in four years. How do I know? Because Barack has promised repeatedly that “HE WILL NOT REST:”
“We will not rest until we reach a day when not one single veteran falls into homelessness” — April 2009
“I will not rest until the dream of health care reform is finally achieved in the United States of America” — May 11, 2009.
“I will not rest until anybody who’s looking for a job can find one” — Sep 2009
“I will not rest until businesses are investing again and businesses are hiring again and people have work again” — Nov 23, 2009
“We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable,” — Dec 28, 2009
“We will not rest until we account for our fellow Americans in harms way.” — January 12, 2010
“I’m not going to rest or be satisfied until the leak is stopped at the source, the oil in the Gulf is contained and cleaned up, and the people of the Gulf are able to go back to their lives and their livelihoods.” — May 14, 2010
Relentless? No rest? Round the clock activity?
Pablo,
He doesn’t count golf outings, dance evenings with Mexico’s president, or sing-a-longs with Paul McCartney as resting. I bet they are almost as strenuous as Barbara Boxer fundraisers. Can he blame Bush for not telling him how much a president has to do?
“Did his supporters think there are no special executive skills involved in being president?”
Precisely. Those that I called the word-and-image-people…writers, entertainers, advertising people, many kinds of professors…have become so self-centered and arrogant that they do not really believe there are any important skills other than word/image manipulation: everything else can be safely left to lesser minds or picked up by a word/image person with trivial ease.
David Foster, I have called them the Arts & Humanities Tribe over at my site and written quite a bit about them. I think there’s significant overlap with your Word/Image People category.
Simon’s amusing. We get called hysterical again without any evidence that we actually have read the situation wrongly or engaged in unreasoning actions or speech. We just say stuff he knows is wrong and we don’t stop saying it, even when our betters tell us its wrong.
Always think in terms of the proverbial Man from Mars, Simon, who doesn’t know the social history and stratification, but has to be convinced on the basis of stripped evidence. Construct arguments that might convince him, and you may convince us as well. Place to start: those things Obama has “done.” How many of them actually involve doing anything other than making disguised campaign speeches, blaming others, and setting up photo-ops?
Careful now…
This has me questioning what you mean when you say ‘do’. He can’t swim down there and stick his hand in the hole can he? I thought he described pretty well what he had done in that clip I linked to. 2 mins in when it turned into a campaign speech I shut it off. Even I can’t stand listening to that stuff.
Obama has done a great job on the oil leak.
He wants it to be a huge mega disaster. That will kill domestic production, and he will very soon own major oil companies. Oil is like health care. If he owns it, he controls every American. He owns people. Does that sound like something? One person owning another?>
Anyone who attributes even benign motives to this guy is not looking.
Had he wanted to help he’d have allowed Jindal et al to do what they wanted on day 2 or 3.
Far from wanting to help, he sought harm and he’s achieved it. Now he holds more cards and more power than he did a month ago.
Attribute malicious motives to Obama, and things begin to make sense.
I invite any counter-examples. I can think of none. Is there even one thing O has done since his installation that has been an unreserved good for America? Anything that has been even a mixed bag of good/bad? Could someone name those things for me if they exist?
“This has me questioning what you mean when you say ‘do’.”
Were it me I would go back and see what other presidents have done. Namely this is the worst spill in our history (though globally it isn’t *that* bad, it is just we have a fairly good record) and note that he – or rather the US govt – has done less in 45 days than others did in the first 10 days of a minor one. More was done with the Valdez Oil spill in the first five days than in the 45 for Obama.
We have many engineering resources, containment resources, public mobilizations, funds to distribute, and, well, very little of that has been done.
Right now I do not see this being fixed any time soon. BP *still* isn’t into a mode of Stop It Now but wants to keep some form of financial rewards from the thing. Nor is the Whitehouse in any mood to counter that idea. You can pick your reason why, you can link to all the talk you want from Obama, but it amounts to bupkis. Indeed it amounts to FAR less than Bush ever did and is still excoriated for over Katrina (you still have to say he was slow for a two week deployment, imagine 45 days out and he gave that report how you would have felt).
A great deal of why Obama is slowly owning this is that no amount of running interference can hide it. BP has no intention of loosing that money as long as they think they can get away with it. Only those that “feel” instead of think can do much more than figure incompetence or corruption. The only saving grace is that so many expect either one (or both) now that few get outraged.
This is why the Left’s response to it all is that the “drill baby drill” people are responsible – shift blame as there is no excuse for what Obama has done. Never mind that the “drill people” never expected all these regulations to be ignored (or rather purchased into ignoring) or if there did happen to be a catastrophe that the govt would be so purchasable to allow it to continue (or at least allow weak forms of stopping it to be tried for 40+ days so BP wouldn’t have to close the well). Even Bush and his “oil cronies” were not this blatant about it.
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