During his Thursday press conference, President Obama once again assured the American people that, when it came to the oil spill, he’d been involved “since day one.” Unfortunately, simply being involved isn’t enough. The Gulf situation has been screaming for leadership and Obama has failed to deliver. Receiving daily briefings, which Obama cited as his sole example of day one involvement, is not leadership. Placing your “boot on the neck” of the people who are in a position to solve the problem is, likewise, not leadership. Screaming “Plug the damn hole” at those trying to implement the solution? You get the point. In crisis, leadership is required – not just “involvement.” Sadly, it’s something sorely lacking in the current administration and Thursday’s Q&A put a spotlight on the shortcoming.
“Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”
Let’s ignore the fact that the story regarding his Malia’s oil spill question is straight out of the Jimmy Carter no-nukes playbook. For a moment, we’ll forgive the fact that the account sounds an awful lot like one of those saccharine, Norman Rockwell tales designed to tug on campaign heartstrings. If we assume the exchange went down exactly as he says it did, we’re left wondering. How did he respond?
According to the rest of Thursday’s press conference, the honest answer would have been “No honey, Daddy’s incapable of plugging the hole because he doesn’t have the technology, but don’t worry, he’s been briefed since day one, and he’s spent the last month and making enemies out of the people who have the solution.”
Mr. President, a leader solves the problem first.
After the spill is stopped, we can look back at who did what, and punish accordingly. Blame can wait, especially when the guilty parties may be necessary to a successful outcome. Obama doesn’t seem to understand this. He freely admits that BP has better tech that the U.S. government, and that their knowledge of drilling is superior. Yet, rather than ask “how can we fix this?” the president spent a month painting them as nothing more than the latest entry in his growing list of evil corporations. Instead of facilitating the fix, the President went to war with it.
Now, Obama’s largely perceived as an absentee President – a man fiddling while the gulf burns. Thursday morning, he was forced to stand, prompter-less, before reporters that finally seem to be growing weary of the excuses. If he expected the bootlicking press conferences of his first year, he may have been surprised. Justifying his May schedule was no easy task.
The President found time to shoot hoops, play two rounds of golf, have lunch with Bill Clinton, and visit with the Duke Basketball team, but he’s been unable to return phone calls from Louisiana lawmaker Steve Scalise? Evidently, Obama’s sports-based agenda precludes such distractions because Scalise, the Representative from the district where the doomed rig exploded, was told by an Obama staffer that the President “was too busy.”
A leader, Mr. President, is never “too busy” – particularly when he’s still able to find five empty hours to hit the links.
Despite bestowing a safety award upon the rig in question, Obama has blamed everyone from BP to the Bush administration for a failure to anticipate this disaster. He’s halted all deep-sea oil drilling in the gulf for six months, or until a presidential commission completes its investigation. He also wants new agencies, expanded federal powers, and more funding to deal with possible future spills.
When faced with a challenge, be it an oil spill, a health care debate, or a financial meltdown, Obama’s M.O. is now painfully clear. Blame someone else, grow the size of government, and increase taxes. It’s a plan of attack that will only serve to create greater problems down the road.
Barack Obama was elected due to his supposed intelligence and competence, yet with regards to the BP situation, he has displayed neither. He is proving daily that, while he might be great at making demands, when it comes to leadership he’s an empty suit. This inability to lead has created a gaping hole at the center of his administration. Please, Mr. President, either plug it or get out of the way.
Robert Laurie is a Michigan-based Conservative columnist and freelance writer. He also runs a daily political commentary blog at RobertLaurie.net.