I couldn't believe my ears. I was listening to the radio this morning on my way in to work, and I heard an excerpt from Obama's commencement address at a high school in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Obama told the kids not to blame others for their own mistakes and urged them to take responsibility instead of making excuses.
Seriously? I wish I could have seen the video to see if Obama kept a straight face. You know, the same Obama who has been viciously attacking BP instead of making his highest priority to work in cooperation with them to stop the spill (the president of BP has not spoken with Obama since the spill occurred in April). The same Obama who just said in an interview that he was talking with the brightest minds about the oil spill, not to figure out how to stop the spill and clean up the mess, but to determine "whose ass to kick." (At least he sounds presidential when he's engaging in political blame-shifting!) One could be forgiven for thinking that Obama's highest priority regarding the Gulf spill was covering himself politically.
It's instructive to compare Obama's handling of the Gulf oil spill with Bush's handling of Katrina. Bush acknowledged his administration's responsibility for dealing with the hurricane fallout (even though his administration had far less to do with the hurricane than the Obama administration had to do with the oil spill). He never once attacked or blamed anyone outside of his administration, even though he could have easily done so (the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana both proved to be pathetically incompetent). He constantly thanked and praised the volunteers working around the clock to clean up the mess, which Obama has not once done to my knowledge. Don't get me wrong. The federal government's response to Katrina was slow and inefficient, but at least Bush demonstrated his leadership qualities by his response.
I was surprised when Obama harshly attacked Bush in his inaugural address. I thought he was supposed to be a different kind of president who was going to bring our country together, and frankly it's pretty unprecedented for a new president to attack the outgoing president at the inauguration ceremony. A year later, in his first State of the Union address, Obama once again blamed Bush for our country's economic woes. In October, Charles Krauthammer said this regarding Obama:
Is there anything he hasn't blamed George W. Bush for? The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad -- everything but swine flu. It's as if Obama's presidency hasn't really started. He's still taking inventory of the Bush years. Just this Monday, he referred to "long years of drift" in Afghanistan in order to, I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan.
I hope the kids at that Kalamazoo high school will prove to be men and women of character and leadership who take responsibility instead of shifting blame. If they do, they will have learned it from someone other than Barack Obama.
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The reason this oil spill is more so the responsibility of the Federal government than Katrina was under Bush, is that it occurred in Federally owned and regulated waters. The drilling platform that exploded and caused this disaster had safety issues that were in violation of federal laws. But were they resolved or ordered to stop drilling? No, the feds ignored the violations as recently as fall of 2009. So, who is the head of the Federal Government and ultimately responsible to share the blame with BP? Well that answer is Obama. What did he do once the spill started? Well nothing for about two weeks. Not even a peep. Not until polls showed that the american people wanted to see some emotion from him regarding the issue.
This disaster differs from Katrina because natural disasters, by law, are the responsibility of state and local authorities. It is up to the state and local governments to request funding and help from the Federal level in order to clean up and repair the disaster area. However due to the imcompetency of the governor of Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans, at the time, nothing was done. And as we all know, FEMA along with other government run entities are inefficient and non-responsive. But what did most people do, especially liberals? Blame Bush. Despite what the law is and what the facts were. They just blamed Bush and continue to do so today. In fact, they blames the divorce between Al "I invented the Internet" Gore and his wife on Bush. But in 2005 Bush was more responsive and more attentive than Obama has or will ever be.
The inefficiency of FEMA makes one wonder why liberals still push for government to run everything when as recently as 2005 we see the effects of how bad they operate.
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