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Now even more Democrats slamming Obama for Gulf oil spill response

05-27-airplane
Remember that scene in the movie "Airplane!" in which passengers lined up to assist that panicked woman who wanted off the aircraft?

The only problem was the way they were assisting her – mainly just repeatedly slapping her in the face.

President Obama probably feels like that woman with all the help he’s getting from fellow Democrats lately.

On Wednesday, James Carville ripped into Obama’s response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill calling it “political stupidity.”

"The President of the United States could've come down here, he could've been involved with the families of these 11 people" who died on the rig after an explosion,” he said on "Good Morning America." "He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could be deploying people to the coast right now. He could be with the Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard ... doing something about these regulations. These people are crying, they're begging for something down here, and it just looks like he's not involved in this.

"Man, you got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving! We're about to die down here!” he said.

You know the wheels have fallen off when Sarah Palin agrees with Carville.

“President may put down the golf clubs & fundraiser fork 40 days into Gulf gusher to finally grasp this tragedy? Carville’s right on this,” she tweeted.

Now add Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, to the list of Democrats who want to help.

In an interview with The Hill, he first appeared to stand up for the president.

“In fairness, there’s not a lot we can do,” Rendell said. “The federal government has no vehicle capable of going down there. None of our submarines can go down there. That is a preexisting condition that was not the fault of the Obama administration.”

Then comes the slap, comparing Obama to a former Democratic president.

“As we know, politics is as much perception as reality,” he said.

“If Bill Clinton was president, he’d have been in a wetsuit, you know, trying to get down to see the spill.”

-- Jimmy Orr

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Photo: Leslie Nielsen "assists" a passenger in the movie "Airplane!" Credit: YouTube

 
Comments () | Archives (4)

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Voters will understand. Our government is ill-equipped to deal with this crisis. All Obama can do is to watch the spill and let BP's engineers solve the problem. He is wise to not let politics mess with science.

It's my turn, it's my turn is echoing across the land. This is the mother of all oil spills. It is almost the equivalent of Saddam Hussein torching all the oil wells in Kuwait. We brought in all the world's experts to put out those fires, however there is no sense of urgency being displayed for this fire - this colossal catastrophe could not even be matched by Cecil B. DeMille or James Cameron or those dreadful disaster movies of the 1980s and 1990s.

Instead, we've got this slippery fellow from Chicago taking months to decide what to do - like he did with the surge in Afghanistan. This time it is deadly for all the marine life in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond... a different type of marine, but still very costly.

I don't remember James Carville getting as angry at President Bush when people were dying during Katrina. President Obama is expected to be God. He is engage and doing the best he can. I think he is good for the country and doing a great job; however, I don't want him to run again. He needs to enjoy his life with his wonderful family - for these complainers because I don't think a lot of Americans will ever accept him as President. .

Obama has screwed up royally. No one blames him for the spill but his response since then has been atrocious. He is not a leader...he is not a commander in chief. He has played golf, basketball, had state dinners, hosted college basketball teams...all while Louisiana waited for some chain of command. Those who continually ask what he could have possibly done are simply ignorant and naive. He is the worst POTUS in history...so many are finally waking up and realizing that he is not qualified...he had zero experience and it shows.


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About the Columnist
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Andrew Malcolm has served on the L.A. Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four. Read more.
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