What A Whiner

Obama explains that his opponents would have fought him if he had pre-emptively cracked down on BP:

In an interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

Wow.  Of course,others would have criticized the President for taking his eye off of the vital effort to reform healthcare.  And speaking of which, if the goal of Obama's Presidency is to avoid criticism and confrontation (rather than, for example, advancing policies in which he believes), why didn't he just drop the push for healthcare reform?

The First Emoter also adopted an old Frank Rich talking point:

The president also implied that anti-big government types such as tea party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.

“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”

Let's see - BP is drilling on Federally leased site in a Gulf which borders five states and several other countries.  I see an Federal role there that is a bit different from the Feds bailing out the guy down the street who over-extended himself when he bought a house, or taking over health care, but maybe that is just me. 

Comments

[Clarice]

The big question in my mind is what would Ashton Kutcher say?

[narciso]

Something equally insipid, even though he has a chemistry degree

[Rob Craword]

The Whiner in Chief.

[Janet]

Barack Black Eagle a whiner? Say it ain't so!

"I want to thank my new parents," he (Obama) said. "The nicest parents you could ever want to know. I like my new name. Barack Black Eagle. That is a good name!"

Obama's adoptive Crow Indian parents said they were disappointed that they had raised such a whiner. "We are disappointed we raised such a whiner."

[centralcal]

No kidding, Rob, and I would add, Finger Pointer in Chief. It is always someone else's fault, no matter what the issue, because of they have DONE, or what they MIGHT do.

I remember snarking during his campaign days about his "ET finger(s)" - index finger on either hand in a perpetual pointing position (albeit slightly crooked). This guy seems to have been born pointing fingers.

No fan of Michelle, but imagine what she must put up with.

[Cecil Turner]

" . . . there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

I think most Americans understand the difference between spending a couple billion of the oil companies' money vs. spending a couple trillion of the taxpayers'.

[Janet]

there are folks up there, who will not be named,

Do the Dems EVER name anyone?

Barbara Boxer on how carbon pollution is the greatest threat to national security.
"so many returning veterans that want us to move forward and address this issue"

Really? "So many"? How many is that? Name some.

[narciso]

No, Janet, you know that doesn't get in the way, I've been seen those ads for the Climate
Bill, 'American Clean Power' otherwise known
as unicorn and pixie dust,

Facts don't bother them either, like a columnist somewhere who pretended Sarah had been at a tea party somewhere, although the
photographic evidence (ahem) clearly shows she couldn't have been there.

[hit and run]

Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said.

Some of the same folks who have been hollering* and saying 'do the right thing' are the same folks who,just two or three months ago,were suggesting that government needs to stop doing things it was never intended to do,so that should the need arise,it have the capability to do the things for which it is responsible.

-------------
*I want video. I'm convinced he dropped his 'g' here and the quote provided by Politico is inaccurate.

[Arturono]

"Some folks up there...who will not be named." That would be Senator Straw Man and his party, I'm thinking.

[Captain Hate]

What does anybody expect from a community organizer president? And one more time: Thanks a lot, McCain, for telling everybody that there would be nothing to worry about this fuzznuts being in charge of the country. Brilliant campaign strategy, idiot.

[centralcal]

From Mark Steyn:

Thus, Barack Obama: He declared himself operational without such a declaration being based on any true capability.

[snip]

In recent months, a lot of Americans have said to me that they had no idea the new president would feel so “weird.” But, in fact, he’s not weird. True, he’s not, even in Democratic terms, a political figure — as, say, Clinton or Biden are. Instead, he’s the product of the broader culture: There are millions of people like Barack Obama, the eternal students of a vast lethargic transnational campus for whom global compassion and the multicultural pose are merely the modish gloss on a cult of radical grandiose narcissism. As someone once said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” When you’ve spent that long waiting in line for yourself, it’s bound to be a disappointment.

[Clarice]

I think that article is one of Steyn's very best.

[narciso]

That Steyn wasn't even in consideration,for a Pulitzer, is a sign of how useless it is as a gauge of anything

[centralcal]

I love Steyn! What I am starting to be rather astonished at and amused by, is how many of the Democrat pundits are barely able to mask their "disappointment" in The Won.

A few, like Kirsten Powers - who admittedly isn't a far left loony Democrat - simply can't muster even the weakest words to excuse their President's lack of leadership and, well, for want of a better word, manliness.

[Jack is Back!]

Listen, if I had gone to my father and mother and said that I wanted to skip college and go directly into Merrill-Lynch or Ford or 3M as a major executive, they would have said no and I would then be stuck with having to hit the books, avoid the beer gardens and actually end up doing something on my own volition. But no, what actually happens is that I did the things I had to do in face of their threats and look where it got me. Nowhere, because I was lacking self-discipline, leadership skills and the right kind of friends and people to associate with while studying and growing up. Now I am faced with the difficult decisions on doing the right thing and I can't all because my parents wouldn't allow me to go directly into being the chairman of the board of BP where I wouldn't have to do anything but show up at meetings and nod my head in agreement.

[Intolerable chutzpah.]

"Trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms."
==========================

[I Won]

The same folks who wouldn't let me finish my waffle are now saying that I'm supposed to suck up the Bush oil spill with a magic straw. But the Republicans wouldn't have let me purchase a magic straw back when I wanted to so I didn't even ask.

[Janet]

From the Steyn article - on Obama -

"That’s not to say he’s un-American or anti-American, but merely that he’s beyond all that. Way beyond. He’s the first president to give off the pronounced whiff that he’s condescending to the job..."
So true.

Whenever I read Steyn, or hear him fill in for Rush...I just can't believe the mediocre stooges on TV and writing op eds. Steyn is SO talented and insightful.

[narciso]

Well someone can let you borrow her 'bendy straw' to do the trick

[Alien, born and bred.]

Oh, yes, like Clinton, he envisages stepping up from the provinces.
=============

[What a poor tangled up piece of second hand work he is.]

Heh, "I didn't do the right thing because those at whom we sneer would have said it was the wrong thing'.

That's what's missing, Clarice.
===============

[Danube in L.A.]

Had dinner last night with my best friend from law school, who is out here briefly from CT. He was SDS at Stanford, lifelong exterme liberal statist. He was near-delerious for Obama during the campaign, trumpeting his brilliance.

To his credit,he makes no effort to defend him now. He just says "this guy is not a leader, and never will be."

Minus 15 at Raz today.

Obama held hostage, Day 54.

[Monstrous schmata.]

You can smelll the breath of tyranny.
========

[Sulphurous, hydrocarbonned, forked.]

Smelll the Breathh.
==========

[He said it all, he said it his way, in Kobenhaven.]

Anybody wanna hear what I really think of Obama?
========================

[narciso]

Now they tell us, sarc, in the LUN

[Dances with Ellens.]

Nope, those are not feet of clay in those cobbles.
=====================

[Captain Hate]

To his credit,he makes no effort to defend him now. He just says "this guy is not a leader, and never will be."

If he was more like Stalin or Mao, would that be better to him?

[Jane says obamasucks]

Let's see, 6 months ago was December, and we are to believe that Obama sat alone in the oval office contemplating whether or not he should regulate the oil companies. It was a tough one, but in the end he decided to drill baby drill, and not consider regulation because he was so afraid of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Is that it?

So this morning I woke at 5:00 and caught a bit of that Rolling Stone guy on hardball. He said that it was all Bush's fault, as Obama had not yet had time to replace the Bush lackeys at Minerals Management Service - a lie - Elizabeth Birnbaum was an Obama appointment, and that the press was much harder on Obama than they would have ever been on Bush. Matthews replied proudly that he was all over Bush.

Mythical Morning TV -

[narciso]

He had no intention of seriously pursuing drilling as we saw from the 'devilish details'
nine months ago, he was pursuing health care
something no one really wanted, with wild abandon, the folks at Rolling Stone really ought to cut back on their own supply

[BB Key]

Good description of the Obama crowd at the Daily Caller: Neo-marxist

I hope it sticks.

[Never let an irony go to waste.]

Oh, c'mon, why would Obama want to 'Drill, Baby, Drill', a most potent 2012 meme? This case is overwhelmed with ironies.
====================

[narciso]

One has to be remarkably gullible or a reader of the AP, but I repeat myself, to believe that.

[RichatUF]

Jane-

All they had to do was read the first Obama budget. When I read it, I counted 9 tax increases and 2 canceled programs (the USGS Arctic Survey and the Ultra Deepwater Research Program). The Deepwater Horizon was given waivers by the Obama Administration, and when it all went bad, they looked for others to blame.

And wow, the bb deployed "conservatives don't like big government until they do" talking point is now going national. It's stupid Axelrod.

And hello all.

[narciso]

I was wondering where I had read that, Rich,
yep they don't produce anything but empty memes 'which never fed a hungry child'

[Danube in L.A.]

"If he was more like Stalin or Mao, would that be better to him?"

No.

[RichatUF]

One wonders why the US even needs to drill in 5000 ft of water and about 50 miles off the coast? Could it be Environmentalist special interests? And the Obama Administration is making sure they aren't letting this crisis go to waste.

And a correction: the program was "OIL AND GAS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM" of which the Ultra-Deepwater Water was a part.

[hit and run]

Good Morning,DoT.

I was about to post "Rasmussen Poll Held Hostage - Hour 1".

Glad you got to it.

How about a little http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2010/65_say_country_better_off_if_most_in_congress_defeated_this_november>more Rasmussen:

19% of voters think it would be better for the country if most incumbents in Congress were reelected this November. Sixty-five percent (65%) disagree and say it would be better if most were defeated. Sixteen percent (16%) aren’t sure.

[narciso]

Who are these 16% and how hard can they be slapped

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

He's stumbling and bumbling and fumbling towards an epic malaise speech in which he will declaim his disappointment in a population undeserving of his presence in the WH.

His pathetic incompetence and constant lying is going to make us yearn for Carter.

[DebinNC]

Concise step by step explanation in the WSJ of why the well blew, and why it's BP's fault. Now I wish we'd see a similarly concise chronology showing whose actions/inactions affected the aftermath.

[stonetools]

The simple fact is what he saying is absolutely true. I note that neither you or any of your commenters have denied that conservatives would have fought tighter regulation of off shore drilling tooth and nail if Obama had proposed it six months.
Your silence on this point speaks louder than your second rate snark. But thanks for playing.

[narciso]

I resent that, our snark is first rate, as opposed to Stewart and Colbert

[Clarice]

Really, with a veto proof majority in the Congress , it's hard to see how any imagined Republican opposition would have stopped him from imposing more regs if he'd chosen to. In fact the press is now reporting the well should have been inspected 16 times during his watch and was inspected only 5 times. It's hard to see how more stringent regs would overcome bureaucratic malfeasance.

[Pofarmer]

No fan of Michelle, but imagine what she must put up with.

Somehow, I imagine that cuts both ways.

Fuzznuts.

I like it. Sister had a boyfriend I used to call fuzznuts.

[Clarice]

actually, it's 16 missed inspections.

http://www.aolnews.com/gulf-oil-spill/article/bps-rig-missed-16-inspections-before-explosion-and-spill-in-gulf-of-mexico/19513678>The moving finger points at O

[RichatUF]

Rick-

It'll be a 3 hour stemwinder in Castroesque fashion. Wonder if he'll hide out at Camp David and have the brightest lights from Hollywood, Wall Street, and DC advise him on why it is all the US's fault.

Should be interesting.

[Pofarmer]

The simple fact is what he saying is absolutely true. I note that neither you or any of your commenters have denied that conservatives would have fought tighter regulation of off shore drilling tooth and nail if Obama had proposed it six months.
Your silence on this point speaks louder than your second rate snark. But thanks for playing.

Totally off Base. If the administration had said, "Hey, we're going to increase oil and gas exploration, let's say double it, but they are going to have to undergo increased scrutiny." I think that's a deal that everyone would have lived with. Fact is, it certainly looked like BP ignored EXISTING protocols, so, it's unclear what adding more would have solved.

[DebinNC]

Really, with a veto proof majority in the Congress , it's hard to see how any imagined Republican opposition would have stopped him from imposing more regs if he'd chosen to.

Exactly. I wonder what Robin of Berkeley would say about Obama apparently believing he knows the names, but magnanimously won't give them, of those Congressfolk who would have opposed non-existent new regs.

[Captain Hate]

"If he was more like Stalin or Mao, would that be better to him?"

No.

Then what's the complaint? Does he admit he was wrong about the purported brilliance of Stanley Ann's petulant little bastard?

[RichatUF]

Ha. The government is so big that MMS has on their gs scale payroll some tweekers with nothing else better to do than explore the darker recesses of the internet. Maybe Obama should have had his people look over the specs on Deepwater Horizon before he signed off on the approval.

[Abadman]

Yes, whether it's oil drilling, immigration, or financial instruments, it would be nice to prove enforcement of existing regulations/laws doesn't work before piling more regulation on top. Talking and passing laws, substitute for the messy business of actually fixing broken systems

[Captain Hate]

Your silence on this point speaks louder than your second rate snark. But thanks for playing.

Simpleton, if BP had been allowed to drill at an angle in shallower waters they wouldn't be having the problems they're currently enduring. But your Ted Kennedy types didn't want their precious view spoiled.

Game over. You lose. Again.

[Jane says obamasucks]

You are right Rich and you have to wonder how stupid the left is. And let's not forget that Obama was about to give his big campaign contributor BP a safety award after the Bush administration had cited them 6 times for safety violations. Bush may have been tied to big oil, but he was a lot more loyal the the US - which is something you could never say about Bambi.

[Clarice]

Head of Coast Guard lied--He knew on 5/11 about the availability of the booms.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-coast-guard-head-was-informed-of-maine-oil-boom-on-521-yesterday-he-claimed-he-didnt-know/>Regs can't diminish impact of stupidity and malfeasance

[Frau Strickveste]

Yearning for Carter? Yes, if only the *only* thing we had to worry about was "odd and even days" at the gas station and which cardigan to wear. The Iranian hostage situation was bad, but look what we have now.

I finished the last of Stieg Larsson's trilogy and think we can name BHO "The President Who Kicked America and the International Hornet's Nest in the Ass."

[matt]

The description Deb links to sounds logical. The workers on TV the other day were talking safety violations but the reality is that human error is much more likely as a cause.

Blowouts are a part of the drilling process and what is more amazing is that there have not been more over the years in the offshore business.This was apparently a hairy beast from the outset.

I also think that, as Oil men, Bush and Cheney were a hell of a lot more difficult to blow smoke at than Obama and his staff.

This is the worst black eye for the industry since the California blowout, and the Left is red lining the spin on this.

[hit and run]

Sharron Angle,Republican senate candidate in Nevada http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/102601-angle-calls-harry-reid-a-a-whack-job-marginal-candidate>speaks truth to power:

Angle began rattling off a list of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) more infamous statements.

"I feel like I'm more mainstream than the fellow that said tourists stink. This war is lost. Light skinned, no Negro dialect. Can I go on and on about what I think a whack job, marginal candidate sounds like, and that's Harry Reid. And that's why we need to fire him. He is so out of touch with mainstream America," she said.

[Danube in L.A.]

"neither you or any of your commenters have denied that conservatives would have fought tighter regulation of off shore drilling tooth and nail if Obama had proposed it six months."

I'm waiting for somebody to tell me what regulation might have prevented this. We already know that the regulations regarding inspections were not being observed, but I have yet to hear anyone contend that more frequent inspections would have affected anything.

It is the automatic reaction of fools like Obama to suggest that every malady and every accident occur simply because of the lack of an appropriate regulation. Bullshit.

Obama is now receiving condign punishment for leaping on the bandwagon of those who blamed Bush for Katrina. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. Man up and deal with it.

[narciso]

I remember that BOP from that terrible Segal film 'On Deadly Ground' which occurred in Alaska, a kinf of crushed visage of Michael
Caine was the villain

[JM Hanes]

Hello Rich! I've been missing you!

The Conservatives/big gov meme is a positively emblematic talking point isn't it? Obama's whole condescending, strawman formulation has gone viral too - the guy who wrote narciso's WaPo piece clearly has a raging infection. In an article castigating public naïfs for essentially believing the media hype on Obama's super powers, the author actually manages to include skeptical conservatives among the enablers.

Of course, media types have long blamed the public for their own flaws -- we have a short attention span, we don't have the stomach or the patience for a long war, which is why body bags must be hidden from view, and why the press must expose them, in order to teach us that war has real costs..... We subscribe to "Hercules myth of how the world works..." Sheesh. Substitute government for Hercules, and you get "progressives," not the public currently up in arms.

[JM Hanes]

"....there are folks up there, who will not be named..."

We note the New! Improved! "some."

[narciso]

Starobin's an interesting fellow, he's written about hoe power has accrued to the likes of Putin and Chavez in crisis, but he
also had a chapter on secessionist movements,
his book something about POst America, asks us to consider the age of limits and restrain
our power, and takes a few obligatory uninformed jabs at Sarah, but then recently
had a good column on her advisors, so he's very splunge, and not being indecisive at all

[Porchlight]

From the Steyn article - on Obama -

"That’s not to say he’s un-American or anti-American, but merely that he’s beyond all that. Way beyond.

As much as I love Steyn I think he's copping out here. "Un-American" and "anti-American" are perfectly accurate, especially the latter.

[Neo]

Politicians in this country have lost sight of what government jobs are a about … it’s public service. It’s not easy.
Instead they seem to think being a Congressman or Senator is the best thing close to being royalty. This is the equivalent of wishing to live in Medieval Times, but of course not as a serf.
If they don’t want to make hard decisions .. become an insurance salesman for gosh sakes.
The same goes for our “Whinner in Chief”

[sunzeneise]

Woulda - Coulda - Shoulda

[Jane says obamasucks]

It seems pretty easy to me.

[Extraneus]

Sounds like the lightworker is feeling a bit overwhelmed.

[Joe The Plumbler]

there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

Um, does he mean those 59 Democratic Senators?
Or did he mean Speaker Pelosi?

Because "up there" is composed of a majority of his own party.

Thanks America for elected such a shameless, finger pointing, obfuscating liar.

[Joe The Plumbler]

I note that neither you or any of your commenters have denied that conservatives would have fought tighter regulation of off shore drilling tooth and nail if Obama had proposed it six months.

Laugh out loud funny.

Um, Obama's Dept of the Interior gave out a safety award as "MMS Thought Deepwater Horizon was Award-Winningly SAFE

Your ignorance is appalling.

[Comanche Voter]

Pussy In Chief finds new "villains" who would have punched him if they'd thought of it.

What a mendoucheous little weasel.

[macphisto]

"His pathetic incompetence and constant lying is going to make us yearn for Carter"

going to? hell, i'd just about take Andrew Johnson over this.

[bunkerbuster]

Suppose Obama was white, with, say, an engineering degree from a midwestern college, and 12 years as governor of a fine, red state. An establishment Christian from a white church who's birth certificate, college transcripts, letters home and dental records were available for public perusal.
But still, he was a liberal who believed in an activist role in government, diplomacy over military aggression and progressive taxation.
Wouldn't you be equally opposed to him?
Or is all this stuff about how secretly incompetent Obama is an admission that your ideological objections don't, on their own, are of so little substance, you need scandal and identity issues to mount a viable critique?

[boris]

Suppose binkysucker was rational ...

Nah ...

[To the treetops, and beyond!]

See the movable hanging of shiny objects just overhead? In a few months, you'll be able to reach them, and turn them over in your hands.
======================

[RichatUF]

JM Hanes-

Thanks. Things have been going not so well the last couple of months but have been improving recently. I'm hoping to have some good news soon and I should have more time for posting in the next couple weeks.

bb-

Good grief. Obama isn't secretly incompetent; his incompetence has been on display for all to see during the campaign and during his administration. The bitter harvest is about to be reaped.

[Melinda Romanoff]

hope all improves swiftly, Rich.

[RichatUF]

Thanks mel. And thanks for answering my question a few threads back.

[Melinda Romanoff]

I don't think I covered everything, but I hope it helped.

[bunkerbuster]

Rich writes: ``Good grief. Obama isn't secretly incompetent.''
Are there any competent liberals? Can you name one? It comes down to intellectual honesty. Is it Obama's competence, or his ideology, that you have so much trouble with?
If, in your mind, there are no competent liberals, then why the constant personal attacks on Obama's intellect, etc? Perhaps his only problem is that he's adopted the wrong ideology.
If you took the same guy, same educational and professional background, and made him a teabag conservative, would you still say he's "incompetent"?

[lyle]

Yes.

[bgates]

Some of the same folks who were hollering and saying ‘send the National Guard to New Orleans’ are the same folks who, just two or three seconds earlier, were suggesting that government needs to stop fighting wars in the Middle East.