As someone with a staunch pro-Obama background, I have to say that I was thoroughly disappointed with his Oval Office address tonight. To be honest, I can barely remember a single word. It was that lame. He said almost nothing. He proposed virtually nothing. And, ultimately, it will have accomplished less than nothing.
Now is the time to push - HARD - for a move away from fossil fuels. The Republican party is hopeless. Let's be honest here. They are so in bed with the oil lobby, and so deeply in denial about our future energy problems, that consulting them is pointless. Now is the time to be bold and not the time to hope for bi-partisanship (casually mentioned in the speech tonight). Yes, now is the time, President Obama. The time to do what, exactly?
Where was the plan, Mr. President? You are in danger of appearing "Bush-lite" on energy policy and that is a scary place to be. Use your power as the head of the Democratic Party to make alternative energy a signature issue for the party for the next two or three election cycles - or more if it is required. We don't have much more time to waste. The country wants it, it is the Congress (and maybe the President, I can't tell) that doesn't. It is a winning issue.
Saying nothing is not an option. Tonight's address was practically nothing.
Now is the time to push - HARD - for a move away from fossil fuels. The Republican party is hopeless. Let's be honest here. They are so in bed with the oil lobby, and so deeply in denial about our future energy problems, that consulting them is pointless. Now is the time to be bold and not the time to hope for bi-partisanship (casually mentioned in the speech tonight). Yes, now is the time, President Obama. The time to do what, exactly?
Where was the plan, Mr. President? You are in danger of appearing "Bush-lite" on energy policy and that is a scary place to be. Use your power as the head of the Democratic Party to make alternative energy a signature issue for the party for the next two or three election cycles - or more if it is required. We don't have much more time to waste. The country wants it, it is the Congress (and maybe the President, I can't tell) that doesn't. It is a winning issue.
Saying nothing is not an option. Tonight's address was practically nothing.
4 comments:
I agree with your assessment of the president's speech.
This should not surprise you though as Obama has been the BIGGEST recipient of money from BP since in office.
Further, the proposals that he outlined are things that BP has been lobbying for for some time.
Perhaps now you can begin to see what an empty suit Obama truly is. For all of his eloquence and rhetoric, he did not propose a solution to the immediate problem of the oil leak and has no intention of changing course from the status quo regarding our nation's current energy policy.
Glad to see you are waking up to this reality, Splash! I applaud your finally questioning of Obama.
First of all, don't misunderstand my post. I was frustrated by the lack of detail in this particular speech. I am still a huge supporter of this president.
Your statistic about BP and Obama (as are most "statistics" provided by the right) is very misleading. Look into the last decade and you will see the donations to Republicans far exceed anything Obama has.
And, your argument that the President's proposal is exactly what BP wants is baseless. BP does not want to put money aside in escrow, BP does not want tighter restrictions on drilling, BP does not want the moratorium on deep water drilling, and BP wants nothing to do with green energy. What BP has been lobbying for is "drill baby drill," and until this administration came in, no one was telling BP "no." Now, they have heard it. It was not as strong as I would have liked, but it was there.
But I find it humorous that you criticize the President for not having a plan to stop the leak, when the PRIVATE industry that caused it does not either. But, naturally, why blame BP when bashing the President of the United States is so much more fun, right? It is even more humorous for you to categorize his energy proposals as "status quo." Ummmm...no. Drill baby drill is the status quo, sir, and that is not what he is proposing. There is no counter from your side on alternatives to fossil fuel, you just keep calling for more and more drilling in less stable places. And, now the GOP has come out against even requiring BP to pay for their leak. Michelle Bachman - darling of the tea party and Fox - called BP paying claims to people whose livelihood was destroyed by the leak as "redistribution of wealth." Really? Forcing a company to be liable for their own colossal screw ups is now socialism? But the tax payers doing it, isn't?
Look, I was unhappy with the speech because he failed to lay out the strong case for alternative energy that he had in the campaign. But to argue that moving toward green energy is status quo, and drill baby drill is somehow a revolutionary idea that will remove our dependency on foreign oil is so detached from reality that I worry about you, man. Turn off Fox. Stop thinking Sarah Palin knows anything about anything. The right wing plan is pure denial of the catastrophic nature of the spill, and of how damaging importing oil from Iran and Saudi Arabia is to our national security.
And spare me the "we should drill in ANWR" line. I think with all that has come to light about the non-existent safety procedures the oil companies employ and the non-existent disaster plans they have, relying on their word that it can be done safely is about the most ludicrous thing we could do.
Dave, it was BP that lobbied for cap & trade legislation. It was BP that has been advocating additionally for "alternative energy sources", so much so that they have even made commercials to this extent.
Yes they want to continue to drill, but they also want alternatives fuels and legislation that makes their smaller competition more likely to fail or become uncompetitive.
Further, if your report of Malkin is accurate, then shame on her. I agree with you fully on that issue.
As for drilling safely, well for the thousands and thousands of times it is done safely, no one notices. When one company ends up having an accident though, it is time to stop all drilling forever. And the left STILL doesn't have any viable alternative to oil in which to replace it with immediately.
It seems to me that if you want to stop using your main source for energy immediately, you probably should have some back-up plan of what to use to replace it.
Instead we get generalities and platitudes from the Teleprompter Man.
Cap & Trade was originally a Republican proposal from the 1990s, which has worked on the state level quite well.
You should know that what a company says in a commercial is not exactly what their business model is comprised of. Papa Johns says it has better ingredients. Better than who? How is better defined? So, BP wants an alternative to oil? That's actually smart business, and more companies should start investing in it, as someday it will be the norm.
Actually, it was Michelle Bachman and not Malkin. Malkin is nuts, but I don't think she's that nuts.
And actually, oil "accidents," spills and leaks are on the upswing. Before this incident there was a different one in Texas where people died. There was an accident in Utah recently. Plus, there have been numerous ones in recent years near Mexico, and I'm sure if I devoted 10 minutes to research the point, I could find more.
If you watched the Congressional testimony from the top five oil execs, then you saw how they admitted they had no plan to contain a leak of this magnitude. No plan. Yet, on their permit application, they claimed they could handle a spill 10x what is happening in the Gulf now. These folks are liars. It is obvious to everyone except Sarah Palin, Haley Barbour, and John Boehner, it seems. Why would you be willing to take their word on anything?
Like I said, I was disappointed with the President's speech last night, but seriously, there is no alternative to the Democratic Party (as flawed as it is) in today's politics. The GOP and the tea party have no solutions to anything, only complaints. When I see a serious proposal from anyone on the right about moving past fossil fuels - not just foreign oil - I will take the right seriously on this issue.
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