Ranting About the BP Oil Debacle and the President's Speech: Plug the Hole!

And by "hole" I mean the president's mouth.

Seriously, are you kidding me with the "content" of last night's speech? I'm using the word extremely loosely. Using the oil disaster to bang on about cap-and-trade and pushing his energy agenda? NO! We want to know specific details about how to plug the leak, not some out-of-touch, tone-deaf nonsense about cap-and-bloody-trade. And the details aren't there for dealing with the pressing current situation. You can look for yourself. The text of the speech is here.


Surprisingly enough -- or not -- the response to the goopy spill of slick words last night has been hugely negative even from the president's usual supporters. Seriously, when you've lost MSNBC's loopy partisan Keith Olbermann, when MSNBC's Obamaniacs say that compared to Jimmy Carter you lack executive command, you know you're screwed.

OK, I just have to say, plenty in that speech annoyed me (all those glittering empty pieties at the end, for instance), but I especially hated this line: "We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused." (And he kept banging on that theme ... BP will pay ... BP will pay ... BP will pay...)

This isn't a Hollywood action blockbuster where such flamboyant expressions of payback are expected. This isn't Picard screeching about the Borg, "And I ... will make them pay ... for what they have done!" That sort of stuff works if you're captain of the Enterprise fighting aliens, not the president talking about an oil spill.

We look to the president for some semblance of responsible leadership, and there he is pretending to be a tough guy? From previously saying he wants to know whose a** to kick to this Hollywoodesque threat to BP? Are you kidding me? And in any case, yap about compensation later, because the oil is still gushing and the first priority should be -- duh -- plug that hole. And demonizing the people you need to plug the hole -- while they're trying to plug the hole -- is just so much ham-fisted bad PR.

But overall, we mostly get a line or two of Beltway bravado ... and then a balloonful of hot air about cap-and-trade and energy policy points. Really? Really? Geez, I know that slimeball Rahm Emanuel said no crisis should be wasted, but this is just too freaking much.

Personally, I love this sardonic headline from the Los Angeles Times blog: "There's a pipe spewing a gazillion globs of oil into the gulf, so let's build more windmills."

Bonus: Obama giving a shout-out to China for its "clean energy." I don't have to elaborate, do I?

So in summary: OH FOR CR*P'S SAKE. It'd all be uproariously funny if it were a sitcom, not real life.

Enough ranting. I'll end with a bit from Jay Leno. Check out his comment on the speech (the second item in his monologue).



UPDATE: A good point. Another good point.