Obama's speech: There's a pipe spewing a gazillion gobs of oil into the gulf, so let's build more windmills

Gov. Charlie Crist checks a Florida beach for signs of oil

For all his reputation as the nation's Top Talker, Barack Obama took his sweet time giving a maiden Oval Office address to the country. And waiting another nearly 60 days to speak nationally about the oil spill that’s become the worst environmental disaster in the nation’s history.

Obama, the first modern president to pass his first full year in office without addressing the country from his historic desk, had the setting right. Just back from a day-and-a-half on the gulf coast listening, reassuring, talking tourism, eating seafood. He wore the proper suit, had the requisite flags and family photos in the background.

For 18 minutes he delivered the words crisply and forthrightly, though too often distracting anxious viewers with his fidgeting hands like the lecturing professor he once was. Or wait! Was Mr. Cool nervous? (See video below.)

Obama had the firmness down OK: Make no mistake etc. We will hold BP accountable etc. He....

...had the God references. The talk of real live shrimpers devastated. An American way of life threatened. And though he likened the spill more to an epidemic, he also brought in the requisite battle metaphors. And, has Obama ever mentioned, there's another Nobel Prize winner in his cabinet, Stephen Chu, who hasn't been able to stop the oil leak either?

But there was something wrong. The first two-thirds of the president's remarks read just fine (Full text over here on The Ticket as usual). By golly, we’ll get the money, we’ll clean it up, no matter how long it takes.

But watching the president and hearing him was a little creepy; that early portion of the address was robotic, lacked real energy, enthusiasm. And worst of all specifics. He was virtually detail-less.

After almost two months of waiting through continuously contradictory reports, an anxious American public wanted to know, HOW are you going to accomplish all this?

Even Obama's cheerleaders over at MSNBC were complaining. "Where was the How in this speech?" demanded Keith Olbermann. Seriously.

Everyone's assumed that fixing the leak was a given since Day Four, which was still five days before the Democrat got his big plane and presidential entourage down there.

Local gulf coast officials are tearing out their hair trying to comprehend and comply with seventeen (as in seven more than 10) federal agencies falling all over themselves to do The Boss’ bidding and help and impose and superimpose their visions and regulations on what is a war zone with hundreds of ships and some 30,000 people involved, many of them frightened. And all of them inexperienced on a disaster of this scale.

Trust me, the president said, tomorrow I'm going to give those BP execs what-for. As CBS' Mark Knoller noted on his Twitter account, the president has allotted exactly 20 whole minutes this morning -- 1,200 fleeting seconds -- to his first-ever conversation with the corporation responsible for the disaster.

Then, he's got an important lunch with Joe "I Witnessed the World Cup's First Tie" Biden.

Well, just-believe-in-my-change-to-believe-in may have been good enough to win Obama's party primaries and the general election in 2008 and drag along into office enormous congressional majorities of fellow party travelers.

But after yelling "JOBS!" for a year and getting a protracted Democratic intra-party fight over Obama's beloved healthcare instead, Americans wanted some Oval Office specifics Tuesday evening on stopping the uncontrolled undersea oil escape.

Instead, Obama was like a Harvard-trained nurse talking vacation to a new patient bleeding all over the ER floor. Hello, could we please stop the blood flow here before we discuss the long-term recovery?

Obama’s delivery did not really come alive until the end when the ex-community organizer got into his favorite Big Picture stuff. Memo to American Homeowners: Do not call Obama over to fix your leaking roof – or pipe. Have him design a new house, no, better yet an entire neighborhood or city from scratch.

Following the advice of his chief of staff, Rahm "I Got a Rent-Free Apartment from a BP Adviser" Emanuel, Obama is determined to leave no crisis unused. When he got into the decades-long fossil fuel addiction rehab stuff, his eyes shone. His delivery punched up.

Now, that is an issue that requires greatness. Another galactic reform out of Hyde Park. It sounds swell unless mega-trillion-dollar federal deficits are on your mind, which voter polls now show ranks with terrorism as Americans' top fears.

Obama’s historic presidential campaign was not only big in terms of an unprecedented three-quarters of a billion dollars to win. It was about Big Promises. He was going to change America, radically reform the entire education system, healthcare, comb the entire federal budget line-by-line, oh, and change the 200-year-old partisan ways of the capitol. About the only big change the White Sox fan didn't promise was getting the Cubs a World Series ring.

It was all impractical, of course. But the country wanted to believe....

....in his change to believe in. And it did, handing complete control of the federal government over to Obama and his Democratic party. And today, after 17 months of lop-sided Democratic majorities now nervously confronting midterm elections Nov. 2, about 60% of Americans would like the new healthcare bill repealed. And they're hinting they'd probably like some more Republicans in Congress too.

President Obama has said he doesn’t sense an appetite to address something as large as the illegal immigrant issue this year. But suddenly – watch the left hand over here because he wants you to not focus on how long it’s taken him to take charge of the spill – he thinks there’s a compelling need to spend a motorcade full of moola that the federal government doesn’t have in order to change the country’s energy habits.

And we've gotta start that right now because of an underwater leaking pipe 40 miles off Louisiana that we haven't plugged and don't really understand how it broke in the first place. So let's do the electric car thing and build more windmills now.

And if, by chance, the nation’s politicians end up fighting over an energy plan during the next five months until the voting, maybe the politically damaging healthcare regrets and hidden costs will drown in all the words like so many thousands of seabirds in all the gulf’s still-surging oil.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Speaking of politics, click here to receive Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Follow us @latimestot  Or Like our Facebook page right here. We're also available on Kindle now right here. (With an oil-free two-week trial.)

Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images; Rod Lamkey / AFP / Getty Images; Getty Images (pool).

Comments

[Edgar Friendly]

Hey democrats:

By now you are probably getting the picture.

A community organizer from Chicago is nothing more than a Jackson or Sharpton. Not leaders, just muckrakers, looking for a crisis to point a finger at. Obama is no leader, but only knows rhetorical speech and fingerpointing.

You can continue to bash Bush, but come on, blaming him and racism for everything has worn thin. The country doesn't believe that anymore.

The independents and conservatives will step in, in November, and attempt to undo the damage that has been done. A healthcare fiasco that neither side wanted, an unprecedented attack upon Israel, the highest spending in world history, out of control "post-racial" racist remarks made continuously, the attempted takeover of all private business that would make Lenin and Stalin proud, a military death-toll higher than Bush would ever have imagined, a "vote present only" approach to foreign policy, jobs, and now the worst oil disaster in American history. Guantanamo is still open and we're still in Iraq.

All from a guy that was going to "make the oceans recede and the skies clear" in all "57 states" without the use of any military "corpse-men".

You can continue to make the same worn-out excuses, but the country now knows, your obama ain't no daisy. He's no daisy at all. Poor soul, he's just too high strung.

[Joe]

What we really need in this country - is a reluctant politician. Specifically a president who does not really want to be president but is sacrificing himself for the good of our country and for its future.

What we currently have however, is someone who was always in love with running for the next higher office. Seriously, and I mean this with no ill will - why would we elect someone whose only contribution through his political career - was limited to his work to secure his next election?

It astonishes me.

[jordan77]

look....we only have one president at a time. It's Obama right now. We put him in office to get rid of the Republicans. And what are we doing? Beating up on the only party that can help the middle class and poor in this country. Okay, so we are going to bring back the CEO and his 2001-2008 posse, place them and their FAILED policies back in the white house? Hello!?I'm sorry! Who reappoints a CEO that ran the company into the ground? Who does that!!!!! Stop beating up President Obama and the only credible party that can get this country back on track. The Democrats are historically the only party that helps the common man. AN HISTORIC TRUTH...look it up in the records of the Library of Congress. Run the stats yourself. The Republican party represents a handful of wealthy contributors who like to keep ALL THE MONEY. It is going to take a LONG time to turn this nightmare of an economy and energy policy around. It's NOT GOING TO BE DONE UNDER REPUBLICAN RULE. Get a clue Americans.

[David M.]

As Patton once stated "Lead me, Follow me, or get out of my way.
This is what many of us here in America have been saying to this administration for some time now. We are not asking for hand outs, nor do many of us want them. We do not need our President to kiss every boo boo we may have. We do not need a President traveling the globe apologizing to the world for who we as Americans are. We also do not after 16 months in office any President blames all troubles on past Administrations. At some point a President should show leadership, in the face of troubling issues, economy, diplomacy, etc.
I for one did not vote for Obama, but did hope for the best, and prayed he would use sound judgment for the betterment of the nation.
In my opinion, Obama has been a failure as a leader. The BP oil crisis is just the latest issues in which he has failed. I personally did not need for him to go there, as I did not expect Bush to after Katrina.
But what I did expect was for the Commander in Chief to break out all resources to protect the beaches and fragile ecosystem of the gulf shores. 60+ days and oil is still washing up on the shores and spreading. Governor Jindal requested permission to build sand barges 10 days into the spill; the Army Corps of Engineers are still studying the environmental impact. There was a procedure to burn off the flow at the source, from the beginning, but the EPA prevented that until it was too late. Other countries have offered clean up help, but Obama has refused to temporarily lift the Jones Act to allow foreign vessels in out waters, mush a Bush did shortly after Katrina. This only three of the areas in which a "Leader" would have stepped forward and said. "MAKE IT SO” Instead, let us allow the BP problem to worsen, let’s shut down off shore drilling and exploration and utilize the crises to prop up our Cap and Trade proposal.
We do not need a government to look after every aspect of our lives to protect us from failure. Failure and perseverance is what made this country great. Not a yes man who needs a tella prompter, to let the American People know what he believes in. A true leader needs no prompts to relay their thoughts, their beliefs come from the heart and guts, where no tella prompter is needed.

[chris]

Wow, how did this story make it past the editor? Obama is in deep trouble if the LA Times is tired of him. I say welcome to the club from a person who saw Obama's lofty bull during the campaign and understood that Obama was the least qualified presidential candidate ever! Now his inexperience is showing in the fact that all he can do is criticize and complain since he lacks leadership. Community organizers no how to get people in a froth and they know how to complain and sling barbs at their enemies, but they don't know the first thing about executive leadership.

[biff]

Tom Degan's comments reflect the reasoning behind why we are in this mess. A bunch of ad hominem, emotive attacks on the opposition. You are watching too much Bill Mahr Tom, where snarky commentary passes for deep thought.

The bottom line is Obama is in over his head, has demonstrated no grasp of fundamental economic principles and, via his foreign policy, has made the world a less safe place.

Enjoy your change Tom, the rest of us won't.

[Steve Douglas]

Obama knows whats hes doing. Give him some slack. He didn't cause this mess, BP did.

[pajama momma]

Methinks the only oil Crist is seeing it tanning oil.

[Jobama]

This is George Bush's fault.

[Michael Troup]

The Gulf States are facing an Exon Valdez oil spill A WEEK and the President's plan is to send lawyers, guns and money(which we don't have)? This is a crisis of biblical proportions, not a Warren Zevon song!! Maybe if he was in charge of a small town in Louisiana and was required to organize a union contract for beach cleanup we could count on him to actually DO something, but other than that, forget it. Instead of calling for every available skimmer, boom and cleanup vessel, he demands that BP open an escrow account? GOOD GOD, WHAT HAVE WE DONE IN ELECTING THIS FOOL?

[HAHAHA Told ya]

Buttcrack Obama is a dolt.

[rob]

Oh man! Do I miss McCain now!.He's way more of a leader than Obummer. It's just sad. He has no sense on leadership or whats appropriate. Ive never seen a Potus take so many vacation days during a national crisis like this. He's just not serious. Its like he wants this to be the worst environmental disaster in the US ever so that he can shove his tree hugger/job destroyer policies down our throats. This is how fascism starts. Use a crisis to incite the useful idiots out there to do your bidding. Sieg Obama! Sieg Obama!

[KnightHawk]

Nice piece, hit the nail on the head.

[G]

and using, yet again a teleprompter...

[Fred Thompson]

wrt Tom, Fascism is left-wing. Right-wing values private ownership which has a direct causal relationship to wealth and a high standard of living. Fascism removes private property rights which kills incentive and yields minimal productivity. Obama and the Democrats ruhed headlong to make the Ponzi scheme financing by the US even larger which means an even bigger crash sooner.

wrt energy, Obama is clearly enamored with his fantasies, not reality. There are only 3 ways to make energy; break atoms, facilitate particle exchange (batteries) or harness physical motion. When atoms break, pressure and heat are released which can be converted into physical force. Physical force can be used to spin magnets within a magntic field to generate electricity. Energy sources must be efficient and/or portable. Wind and solar are not efficient. Wind energy could only be used to spin magnets but the wind must always be available and capture of the physical motion must be efficient. Electricity cannot be easily stored and there is always loss during transmission. Batteries are fine for flashlights, some forklifts, etc. but not for large systems. Thus, every windmill erected to create electricity REQUIRES and equal conventional power source to generate at the same time. Wind energy is not constant so it cannot feed constant electricity needs. Portable power for locomotion must have a very high output. A Segway might be fine for scooting a single person with very little baggage around a small flat surface but it will not haul freight hundreds or thousands of miles over irregular terrain.

wrt fossil fuels, the idea that oil comes from pressure applied to carbon lifeforms is not proven to be true. Granted, we are carbon-based lifeforms in a carbon-based environment so it has some merit. Nonetheless, carbon is a prime prequisite to life.

Barack may claim to have the power to cool the earth and lower the oceans but he cannot "suck it (the oil) up with a straw" any more than he can change physical reality.

He's experiencing the fate of all rainmakers and false prophets.

[jUStBob]

You leffties just cannot get pass making snied comments, now we have been stuck with un-informed vote and inexperinced leader. Where is the change you could believe in...one hint Dorothy of Kansas house was dropped in OZ, there is your change. What a bunch of DOLTS....Obama is screwing things far worse than John McCain. What a loser yu are if you fell for the hopey changy thing. P.T. Barnum said it best..."There's a sucker born every minute and TOM is the proof. Sad. America's self-relainace has always been the secret of our success, not creating a nanny state for the clueless in our mist.

[Ocho Gertzweiller]

So...basically by equating his dumbassery to FDR ....you are welcoming a new power grab..tyrnaic..despotic communist type president with Napolenon like complex..who is pro communism and destruction of private enterprise ...and floor mat for ushering in the 2nd great depression?
Kudos to you..watchout for exterminating manholes...usually they swallow your kind up.

[heyrobert]

Dear Mr. Malcolm,

After 50 years on this earth, extensive world travel and 5 children, I thought I had seen it all and there was nothing that could shock me. Was I ever wrong in that assumption! I could not possible envision the time when my jaw would drop and I would whole heartedly agree with anything coming out of the LA Times. Thank you so much for a much deserved lesson into the mystery’s of life. Your spot on commentary regarding our President is probable the best recap of his presidency that I have seen to date.

Thank you and very warm regards,
Robert

(AM responds: Thanks, Robert, for your kind words. Hope you bookmark The Ticket and we see you back here regularly for more of the same.)

[AZ Native]

Empty suit full of bluster
Only threats can he muster
"I'll kick some a*s, we'll make them pay"
While oil soils beaches, more each day.

[Nunya]

Bloom off the rose eh? Good to see natural law still reigns supreme, time for them to eat their own lol.

[JDW]

Hahahahaha - great picture at the top! Charlie Crist "looking for oil" as in, sun tan oil on that woman's posterior.

[YouGotChangeIn08]

Mr. Degan, Obama hasn't yet become Carter. Once he accomplishes that, then maybe he'll become Clinton. He'll never make FDR, and America will be better (or less worse off) for it.

[Derek]

Ok, really LA Times? Of all the pictures you have of Gov. Crist walking the beach, you use the gotcha pic of him eye balling bikini girls!

On to the topic, B.O . is failing has a leader. He may be a good speaker, get a strong rally, pump people up so they faint. Che did the same thing, but he knew he was no leader. B.O. is an empty suit waiting for instructions on how to answer to this. He does not have solutions to now things, he is a tomorrow guy. Maybe admitting he handled it poorly and placing someone else in charge of the spill to have one true boss, an Oil Spill Czar if you will, can actually save his career. Otherwise, this is now worse than Katrina ever was from environmental point of view.

Time to take a backseat B.O. and let the big boys finish this game.

[mac691]

TOMDEGAN: I've seen some pretty idiotic posts in my time, but your post is right at the top of the heap. It's not too early to judge this administration. They are tyrannical, not caring what the people want, their agenda is marxist, the evidence being that they are surrounded by actual marxists or marxist sympathizers. They are distinctly Anti-American, apologizing around the world for the greatest country in history, and apologizing to some of the worst thugs in the world. They are totally anti-capitalist, and thus anti-liberty, for liberty is the essence of capitalism. You see, capitalism is a free choice, to either be an entrepreneur or an employee. He is only like FDR in that his economic programs extend, not lessen the length of this downturn, as economists now clearly see FDR's programs as extending, not ending the depression. At least FDR loved America. This guy isn't like Clinton, he is like Carter on steroids. The harm to his country will last generations, at least Clinton's was transitory. Obama doesn't have a single idea to put forward about ANYTHING that isn't Marxist dogma. You can ride that train to serfdom, but we don't have to. Keep supporting the worst, by far, president ever. It shows us who YOU are.

[RA]

Obama and his radical environmentalists are energy terrorists. If that well was drilled in shallow water it would have been plugged in 2-3 days. But the energy terrorists will not allow this. Even better.... drill on land and the problem goes away completely. But the energy terrorists just want to drive the price of all energy to unbelievable highs so they can punish the American people.

ITS TIME FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO PUNISH THE ENERGY TERRORISTS!!!

[William Bedloe]

The phrase of the moment from the left in 2008 was "Change You can believe in"...Today, the new phrase from the right is "See, we told you so"

[Ronald Emmis]

What a pathetic speech. And this schmuck got elected President?

Isn't it possible for us to hold another election now, rather than waiting 2 years until we can officially ditch this half-wit? He is doing us tremendous damage each day he is in office. Hey! I have an idea...A picture of Oilbama and his big ears with "America Held Hostage - Day 518."

This has to end. A total doofus is in charge of the US, and he has no idea how to do anything but spend us into bankruptcy and travel around on Air Force One.

HELP!!!!!

[Texas Firefighter]

Oilbama didn't hit a home run last night; he hit a bunt and got thrown out at first base. His Union buddies refused to allow him to bring in non-union workers and oil skimming barges from Europe. His Nobel prize winning cabinet Secretary and everyone else in his cabinet have no clue other than indoctrinating school children in elite universities; they have no on-site, dirty hands work experience, or business background. Oilbama continues to call oil a fossil fuel. How did the dinosaurs move around on the ocean floor to die and create oil? Oil will always be the engine to our economy; fuel, plastics, medicine, etc.
Try building fuel efficient cars with more metal Einstein. The looney left and lamestream media have too much invested in this fraud community organizer to admit buyer's remorse.
We conservatives and independants will not be fooled or hoodwinked again in 2010 and 2012. I can smell a landslide from the top of my fire truck.

[jim]

Obama's Wednesday schedule

Cigarette,coffee quick look at Huffington post 9-9:30
Morning prayer for Gulf with Jessie,Al, Rev Wright 9:30 to 10
Briefing with Rahm, Bill Ayers and Soros on what to say to BP 10 to 1030
Meeting with BP 10 to 1020 goes to 11:30 because press complains about only 20 minutes and BP asks him some questions so he will talk and they won't have to answer any questions.
Cancels water gun fight with Biden scheduled for 10:30 to 11:30 and goes to lunch with him and Van Jones from 11:30 to 12:30 - reschedules water fight.
Helicopters to Camp David 12:30 to 1:30
Golf with Spike lee and Chicago friends 1:30 to 5:30
19th hole with Eminem and Luther Cambell (just to keep it real) 5:30 to 6:30
Fly back to WH 6:30 to 7:30
Catch some Hardball on DVR (oh oh) and get ready for dinner with Babs 7:30 to 8
8 to whenever,,,,,,, party with Springsteen and Aretha (just to keep it real)

.

[Craig Nicholas]

Tom,

you are surprised at what? that you voted for a incompetent community agitator. the guy has never been a leader and for that matter never will. his answer to everything is to sue or get the unions involved. you need to pull your head out of your ass and see this terrible joke for what he is a fraud!!! but i am glad you and all the other liberals out there can sleep at night knowing the community agitator is dissing our allies and trying to cuddle our enemies mainly the muslims who basiclly spit back in his face. so sleep well and hopefully 2012 will get here before allah gets you!

Craig

[sbi]

this president is a complete moron

[Taylor]

"After almost two months of waiting through continuously contradictory reports, an anxious American public wanted to know, HOW are you going to accomplish all this? "

Anyone who paid any attention to Obama during even the Democrat primaries knew from the git that he's all mouth and no substance. I remember his wild promises -- "The oceans will cool, the planet will heal, everyone will love us, the economy will soar, free healthcare for everybody," blah blah blah -- and recall thinking at the time: "How are you going to do that?" And, "How are you going to pay for that?"

The man has reached his Peter Principle in the Oval Office. And no amount of silky-tongued teleprompter-inspired blather is going to change that.

[Frank Cotton]

He missed the opportunity to be effective in this crisis, and he's too incompetent anyway. I think the American people would be in general agreement that Obama should just suspend the Jones Act so foreign countries can assist, put the governors of the border states in charge, and just go play golf or something and leave us alone. If Obama actually managed to make something happen, it would be worse than the problem. Let's treat him like a union member and pay him not to work.

[Bothpartiessuck]

I said from day one that an administration with a motto of never let a good crisis go to waste could give two shytes about solving any type of crisis situation. I also said when this happened that they'll sit on their hands and let the problem worsen and then we'll get another cap and tax bill push from the libtards.

And now here we are 2 months later and the there's no end in sight but just politics as usual out of this incompetent crew? They should all be impeached! Every last one of them. From the top down this country needs a clean slate and a fresh start. That includes Repukelicans! We can thank the last administration and the job they did for having this worthless bunch we have now. When are people going to wake up and realize lawyers can't and never have solved anything? Just sticky red tape is all they produce.

There's technology to cap this spill. BP doesn't want to cap it. Telling an oil company to cap a spewing geiser is like telling a whore to close her legs. It's like giving a crackhead a pile of crack and asking him to dispose of it. In other words it's not going to happen.

Cap and Tax is just another way for monopolies and oligopolies to lock down their position and do away with the remaining competition. It has nothing to do with the environment. Not one person has said what the money will be spent on. What's the f%$king plan? I know you want to curb omissions by swapping carbon credits "big companies will run the little guy out of business because the little guy can't afford their carbon footprint" which will increase Americans expenses because these companies will pass that fee on to us. But what is the guvment going to do with the money? These are the same morons who aren't getting any help from countries offering it up when there's an oil disaster. Our guvment is completely incompetent but we're just supposed to trust that this bill will do something for the environment? LOL!

Our country is in shambles from all the stupid legislation passed throughout the years by Repukelicans and Dumbascraps. Instead of fixing this mess by looking at failed programs and rethinking them "Social Security is bankrupt" they're just piling on.

Wake up Americans! Your being force fed shovel loads of manure and liking it.

[MrLMBass]

Gov. Charlie Crist checks a Florida beach for signs of oil

Looks like he's looking for a suitable place to drill.

[Matt in Chicago]

Tom, I fear that you are delusional. The only positive about Obama at this point is that his inexperience and love of political expediency is finally exposing the Democrats agenda as nothing but rhetoric and increasingly large payoff to whomever will support their ideological crusade de jour.

You are correct that McCain wouldn't have been a better choice, but your reasoning is as feckless as your party's platform. McCain would have continued acting as a Democrat-lite and would have patched our broken system enough to keep things running for another few years... all the while being attacked by the likes of you.

With Obama we see a leader with clear majorities in both Houses of Congress who has lost the support of Americans by pushing an agenda that only those on the far left want.... while at the same time not being far left enough to make his "progressive" supporters happy.

The reason Sarah Palin is popular is most Americans agree with her core principles... you know, the ones you call fascist. The problem you have is that your ideology is completely antithetical to most Americans and your ideas of how to govern are actually fascist... but you're so far down your ideology hole that you can't even recognize it!

Good luck in Novemeber!

[Brandon]

Tom Degan,

Fascist? Really?
I don't like her either, but you need to understand the difference between the right and left and why they're both wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR2QEYXDJY8

I didn't vote for Obama. I wasn't too fond of McCain, and I'm sick of having to choose between one extreme or the other.

[Judy]

Tom Degan is one of the million reasons we're in this mess! All of them voted for a narcissist who only has an agenda he wants to enforce! He can't or won't do anything about the Gulf, joblessness, illegal immigration or anything else not on the agenda. "Apres moi le deluge" was once said by a king. It fits Obama now. Know your history folks!

[Charlotte Website Design]

Charlie Crist is really checking for oil there.

[Tom is a MORON!]

Obama is a moron and nothing but a puppet of the progressive liberal left. That so-called Fascist Barbie that Tom "I am an idiot" Degan refered to has more brains in her big toe then the entire Obama Administration has in their combined mellon heads. The idea to never let a crisis go to waste has come back and bit him in the AZZ and I can not wait for November to make him a LAME DUCK PRESIDENT! By the way Tom, are you planning on voting for Jerry Brown...I knew it...do you agree with his comment that we need more people on welfare and les jobs? Of course you do because you and many like you can not understand simple economics...MORONS!

[Doug]

To Tom:

Really, Fascist Barbie? You never regretted your vote for Obama? Typical leftist comment, full of personal attacks and no real substance, just like the leader who gives his first speech from the Oval Office and says a whole lot of nothing. Even his cheerleading squad at MSNBC saw through the emptiness of the whole thing. Obama is quickly falling into Bush level support and has already surpassed him in ineptness.

[Jeeves]

@ the liberals and knee-jerk Obama apologists loath to admit their disillusionment -- let's not be mealy-mouthed here; let's not play charades. The President's sense of priorities is so out-of-whack it goes beyond bizarre, goes beyond pathological -- it makes even a cool, collected, non-paranoid type start seeing sinister and ulterior designs in the way this administration "leads."

To say the least, his "response" has been utterly ineffectual and indecisive, and is mainly comprised of politicking, grandstanding, finger-pointing, and making a case for bigger govt.

Not good.

PS: to those trite, snippet-recycling liberals saying "oh, now everyone wants govt involved, what happened to 'smaller govt'? " -- spare us that empty disingenuous regurgitates utterly worthless non-argument. Everyone knows this is EXACTLY the type of thing the fed govt is supposed to deal with; disaster-response is one of the reasons we pay taxes to a central govt.

This administration's failure to quickly and effectively bring the USA's considerable resources and logistical capabilities to bear in dealing with this catastrophe, has exacerbated and prolonged the problem exponentially. Not to mention turning away foreign aid.

This is tragic.

[Mike]

Mr Degan,

Let me sum up your argument: "I'm not happy with Obama, but my opinion is such that I think he is undoubtedly better than John McCain or Sarah Palin, but I can't give any reasons, except that Palin is attractive, and that she is a "fascist"."

People who do not understand the world we live in love to use the word "fascist". I can draw a lot of paralells between Benito Mussolini and Palin, definitely...

[Sir Gareth]

Here is my proposal, lets wean the politicians off of fossil fuels first. Let the President cut over to windmills and batteries at 40,000 feet in Air Force One.

No more fossil fuels for congressional boondoggles. Give them a rubber dinghy and a set of oars and let them travel to Tahiti "carbon-less". No more fossil fuel driven transportation fcor anyone in government except the Military who actually must complete real missions.

What the idiot class, in other worlds the people who drink this "green energy" kool-aid, do not seem to realize is that our transportation system runs on oil and that will not change even in 100 years. Porkulus money spent on clueless academicians are not going to invent some new "pixie-dust" from tinkerbelle's tail to lift the Presidents 747 off the runway. The reason that our academicians must live off the taxpayer is because they can't earn a living the honest way; by selling something that actually works and is valued. We have become an education union driven theocracy - God help us.

Here is another fact for the clueless, our competitors are not going to run their economies on pixie dust (except to sell it to the clueless). They are going to be running their ships, planes, trains, trucks, and cars on gas while we sit waiting for the wind to blow. Its the Spanish armada vs the 7th fleet. Let's put our politicians on wind powered naval vessels and send them up against the Chinese navy and see how well their ideas work before we drink anymore of their Jonestown Kool-Aid

[Max Blaushild]

This article literally says nothing. It's just cheap shot after cheap shot at Obama. No facts, no truth, no nothing

[Juan Meden]

Elect a man with no administrative experience and, guess what?, you get a man with no administrative experience. Obama made his career being a heel-biter and, guess what?, his response to the crisis is to bite heels. Totally predictable, totally useless, totally Obama.

[Sara]

And please don't get me wrong, I voted for Obama and I HAVE come to regret it on a daily basis. This man is probably smart, but he is clueless when it comes to running a huge Government entity. I fear that I have made the same mistake I did when I voted for Jimmy Carter. Both are nice people in way over their heads.

[Joe]

Tom, you voted for an empty suit, and last time I checked, it was not just right-wingers attacking him. As for acting like Bill Clinton, did you just wake up? Do you think Hillary, Rahm and Eric just appeared?

You are seeing what a lack of leadership and lack of experience gets you - inaction, vagueness and most of all, no clear direction. We all just got a lesson in what community organizers do. They agitate a situation (extorition comes to mind) to force others into action. The problem here is that the government cannot solve the problem. Liberals like you think we can live in a eutopia if we just pay more money in taxes. Well, prepare to be disappointed.

[John Galt]

Tom Degan says, "it's too early to judge his administration ... "

This belief in the good intentions and competence of this guy is akin to a famous quote on religion/god paraphrased, "If you believe, no amount of evidence to the contrary is sufficient to disuade you, and if you don't believe, its irrelevant, for he is still gonna get you."

It was right time to judge his administration in January 2008, when his campaign website went up, featuring a detailed manifesto of what he was gonna do to this country. I was too late to judge his administration on Nov 4, 2008.

Now might be a good time for those who voted while sleeping to WAKE UP.

[silkworm]

Dear Tom,

If Obama "gets hounded day and night by the right wing", what do you call all the things said by the Main Stream Media against GW Bush?