Obama Fails the Test of Office.

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Quote:

Obama Fails the Test of Office
American Thinker, by J.R. Dunn

Over the past few weeks, we've been treated to a precise and detailed preview of what the rest of the Obama presidency will be like: a sky black with chickens coming home to roost and blaming George W. Bush.

Not even midway into the Obama presidency, we've been hit with two major crises and a scandal. Constituting the first serious challenges to confront this administration, they arrive quite belated, occurring eighteen months into Obama's first term. Obama has had plenty of time to prepare (recall that Bush was thrust into his moment of truth less than nine months after taking office). So how has he done?

The crises are, of course, the Deepwater Horizon blowout and the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan. (The Israeli maritime strike against Hamas has not yet blown up to crisis level, though the administration is doing its best to accomplish that.) The scandal is the Sestak affair, now promoted to the Sestak-Romanoff affair.

George W. Bush was condemned by everybody from the man in the street to Heaven's mighty seraphim due to the fact that federal aid did not arrive in New Orleans for three whole days after Hurricane Katrina struck. (This was -- and remains -- standard operating procedure for federal disaster assistance. It's hard to see how it could be otherwise -- but we'll skip that.) It has been six weeks since the Deepwater Horizon blowout. And what has the Obama administration accomplished in a time period fourteen times longer than that granted to Bush?

Well, we've seen Obama frowning. Obama sticking his fingers into the sand. Obama saying he's frustrated. Obama telling us a heartwarming story about his daughter. He even, according to spokesman Robert Gibbs, said "damn" at one point. (Though this has not yet been independently verified by a third party.)

That's it. That's the sum total of accomplishment by Barack Obama, his administration, his party, and his bureaucracy, in facing his first major domestic crisis.

The hardware and ancillary equipment necessary to deal with a seabed blowout is well understood. (This information has been nicely presented elsewhere, here in particular,

break

(For a sense of perspective, in those three days when Bush was doing "nothing," the U.S. Army was moving entire units into Louisiana from as far away as Kentucky, the Coast Guard was rescuing from twenty to thirty thousand trapped flood victims, and FEMA was launching the mammoth logistical effort to move the materials necessary for recovery. So what did Bush do wrong again? Looked out a plane window, you say?)

It's actually far worse than it seems, since Obama's failures extend to well before the blowout ever occurred. His appointee to Interior, Ken Salazar, supposedly a new order of Green crusader, failed to provide any meaningful oversight to the agencies under his control, or even give them so much as a quick examination, as far as anyone has been able to tell. But this is easily topped by the pure idiocy of announcing a new effort on offshore drilling without close consultation with industry experts, which might have revealed that at least one company was cutting corners. So the big blowout is not only a failure, but it's a multidimensional failure occurring over a lengthy duration.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/ ... ffice.html

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Now you know why his college and law school records are sealed.

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Quote:

Barack Obama: Let Them Eat Tar Balls
American Thinker, by Stuart Schwartz

So many parties, so little time.

You are Barack Obama, and you know how to party. And now, as oil hits the Florida beaches and dying wildlife and desperate Louisiana fishermen fill the cable news in searing testimony to what Reuters is calling our "worst environmental disaster," you are doing what you do best...party.

Your bureaucrats have been saying "No we can't" to request after request for assistance along the Gulf Coast, but for you it has been "Yes we can" as you spend taxpayer dollars on entertainment at a greater rate than any U.S. president. Your parties have averaged one every three days and your vacations seem endless as you've satisfied the vow of your former social secretary to bring "the same kind of [party] environment" you had in Chicago to the White House.

You weren't known for your attention to business in the Illinois state senate, but, as one friend said about you and Michelle, "if there was a party or an event, they were there." And as little as you did in the Illinois and the U.S. senates, you've been doing even less in the Gulf, notes radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Even Politico, a part of the Washington Post all-Barack-all-the-time media empire, says you are "failing the test of leadership" with your obvious distaste for getting your hands dirty. And the ubiquitous Dick Morris flatly states the emerging consensus: Our "president doesn't have a clue" when he steps off the dance floor.

You're Barack Obama, and you're not the first black president (Bill Clinton beat you to it), the first incompetent president (Jimmy Carter was there for us in the modern era), or the first professor president (Woodrow Wilson brought his Princeton University-blessed master race theories to the White House). But you are the first party president, with more social affairs than any White House in the nation's history. "Party on" was the way WorldNet Daily described it; another summed it up in a headline, "Obama During Oil Spill -- Golf, Parties, Photo-Ops...and More Golf!"

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/ ... t_tar.html

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

This guy is a complete embarrassment...

Quote:

NBC Leads by Touting Obama Showing 'Anger' by Promising to 'Kick Ass'
Newsbusters, by Brent Baker

Insular liberal-media cycle: Liberal columnists demand that President Obama show â€œangerâ€ over BP's oil leak, Obama promises NBC's Matt Lauer that he's determining â€œwhose ass to kickâ€ and so Brian Williams â€“ trumpeting â€œthis is just into usâ€ -- leads the NBC Nightly News with how â€œthe President showed some anger on the topic of his handling of this spill so far.â€

Williams announced Monday night: â€œBefore we get to our correspondents, some late news tonight. Late today, Matt Lauer sat down with President Obama in Michigan for an interview to air tomorrow morning on Today. This is just into us. In this bit you are about to see the President showed some anger on the topic of his handling of this spill so far.â€ Viewers were then treated to this clip of Obama:

I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the gulf. A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be. And I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-bake ... g-kick-ass

THD · **Joined:** Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:18 pm **Posts:** 751

Moby Grape wrote:

This guy is a complete embarrassment...

That says it all Moby.

-={ARCLIGHT}=- · **Posted:** Tue Jun 08, 2010 11:41 am

The spill is almost two months old, QUICK!!! ACT REAL ANGRY!!!!

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

-={ARCLIGHT}=- wrote:

The spill is almost two months old, QUICK!!! ACT REAL ANGRY!!!!

all he has left is ''street cred'' and even that is waning...

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Quote:

President Obama is Making a Fool of Himself....
Power Line, by John Hinderaker

...over the Gulf oil spill. HIs latest is embarrassing:

Now he's looking to "kick someone's ass." Yeah, that'll help. The truth is that Obama's performance with regard to the spill, and that of the federal government generally, has been terrible. They had a plan for dealing with Gulf spills, but didn't follow it. They were slow to recognize the severity of the spill; it took nine days before the feds even offered assistance to British Petroleum. A dozen federal agencies are involved in the response, which reportedly has led to confusion and delay:

Under intense media scrutiny, at least a dozen federal agencies have taken part in the spill response, making decision-making slow, conflicted and confused, as they sought to apply numerous federal statutes.

In one stark example of government disputes, internal e-mail messages from the minerals agency obtained by The Times reveal a heated debate over whether to ignore some federal environmental laws about gas emissions in an effort to speed the drilling of relief wells.

Louisiana officials spent most of the month of May trying to convince various federal authorities to allow them to construct berms to defend their shore against the spill. It took the better part of the month for the feds to finally approve a single berm.

Against this background, it is rather pathetic for Obama--apparently taking Spike Lee's advice--to go around threatening to "kick ass." Maybe he could concentrate on focusing the federal bureaucracy, ostensibly under his command, on responding to the spill in an organized manner.

In this morning's Examiner, Byron York argues that Obama's lack of executive experience has come home to roost:

Running a first-rate campaign, Obama and his supporters argued, showed that Obama could run the federal government, even at its most testing moments. He could set goals, demand accountability, and, perhaps most importantly, bend the sprawling federal bureaucracy to his will.

Fast forward to 2010. The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing out of control. The Obama administration is at first slow to see the seriousness of the accident. Then, as the crisis becomes clear, the federal bureaucracy becomes entangled in itself trying to deal with the problem. ...

For example, it took the Department of Homeland Security more than a week to classify the spill as an event calling for the highest level of federal action. And when state officials in Louisiana tried over and over to win federal permission to build sand barriers to protect fragile coastal wetlands from the oil, they got nowhere. "For three weeks, as the giant slick crept closer to shore," the Times reports, "officials from the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency debated the best approach."

The bureaucracy wasn't bending to anyone's will. The direction from the top was not clear. And accountability? So far, the only head that has rolled during the Gulf crisis has been that of Minerals Management Service chief Elizabeth Birnbaum. But during a May 27 news conference, Obama admitted he didn't even know whether she had resigned or been fired. "I found out about it this morning, so I don't yet know the circumstances," the president said. "And [Interior Secretary] Ken Salazar's been in testimony on the Hill." Obama's answer revealed that he hadn't fired Birnbaum, and he couldn't reach a member of his Cabinet who was a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2 ... 026491.php

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Quote:

President Party Boy
The wrong kind of leadership
New York Post, by John Gibson

Last week's jobs report tanked the stock market; the president took weeks to assert control of the oil spill that threatens doom on the Gulf Coast -- but at the White House the Gatsby-like parties roll on as if happy days were here again.

Just yesterday, President Obama held another fun-filled White House event, a picnic for Congress members, complete with hot dogs, cold beverages and a fire pit.

All told, during the last seven weeks of spewing oil and rampant unemployment, he has frolicked and danced through three major White House music parties:

* The black-tie tent bash on the White House South Lawn after the state dinner for Mexico's President Felipe CalderÃ³n, which featured singer BeyoncÃ©.

* The Paul McCartney hootenanny -- a night of tributes to the former Beatle, which featured the president himself scooting onto the dance floor to join the Jonas Brothers in the long "la-la-la" closing refrain of "Hey Jude." (Plus, of course, McCartney serenading the first lady with "Michelle.")

* The Ford Theater event -- in which the president, taking a break from "kicking ass" on the oil spill, kicked back and relaxed to the song stylings of one-time "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson, among other B-listers.

It was one thing when the president launched his White House days with a round of Martini Wednesdays, Stevie Wonder concerts, conga-line dancing and Super Bowl parties. That was before the gushing oil and before the employment picture defied the Obama hope-and-change cures.

Now it's different. Now the president's fascination with fun and parties in the midst of crisis has not only reinforced a feeling he's out of touch, but has migrated down the chain of command.

Last weekend, Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel held a "super soaker" squirt-gun party at the veep's residence. Everybody ran around giggling and shooting squirt guns at each other. Members of the press covering Biden joined in, to their shame.

And last Sunday, presidential spokesman Tommy Vietor and Obama speechwriter extraordinaire Jon Favreau, both 29 years old, were spotted at a Georgetown bar, stripped to the waist, playing a game of beer pong with a gang of bare-chested buddies. (This game involves throwing a ping-pong ball into cups of beer -- loser drinks beer, winner drinks beer, everybody drinks beer.)

Meanwhile, MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell said on the "Morning Joe" program that she talks to White House staffers who are having nightmares about the oil spill. Evidently, Vietor and Favreau aren't O'Donnell's contacts at the White House.

Fine, folks in the White House pressure-cooker need to blow off some steam. But it seems the president and his underlings don't see any need to rein in their love of partying, even though regular Americans are facing catastrophe.

Yes, the president looks elegant and cool in his tuxedo, dancing to Jay-Z or the aging "cute Beatle" -- but there are people in the Gulf who can't pay their bills, and millions of the long-term unemployed who are on the outside, looking in on all the fun. Judging by the polls, the grumbling of the outsiders is getting louder.

The president may want to consider making good on his promise that all hands are on deck for national disasters, by passing the word that party time is now on hold -- and then leading by example.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/op ... z0qSGGFFFy

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

LOL!!!!

Quote:

President demonstrates his dog-walking skills
Houston Chronicle, by Lana Berkowitz

http://blogs.chron.com/apetschronicle/2 ... dog_1.html

Tiger1 · **Posted:** Thu Jun 10, 2010 7:52 am

Moby Grape wrote:

LOL!!!!

Quote:

President demonstrates his dog-walking skills
Houston Chronicle, by Lana Berkowitz

http://blogs.chron.com/apetschronicle/2 ... dog_1.html

The leash is on the wrong one ! :twisted:

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Quote:

President attended fundraiser during Gulf memorial service
CNN, by Abby Livingston

(CNN) - According his official schedule, President Obama did not attend the May 25 memorial service in Jackson, Mississippi for the workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion because he was en route to a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in San Francisco.

At Thursday's White House briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked why Obama did not attend the service. The president's spokesman answered, "I'd have to look at the schedule. I don't know the answer."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... HvH04AbXlE

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

Quote:

Obama says BP oil spill impact 'echoes' 9/11; relative of WTC victim calls President 'off-base'
New York Daily News, by Kenneth R. Bazinet

WASHINGTON - President Obama, in a stark and striking comparison, said the devastating impact of the BP disaster on the national psyche "echoes 9/11."

The endlessly spewing oil rig off the Gulf Coast - like the terror attacks of 2001 - will influence the nation's future long after the crisis passes, the President said in a provocative Oval Office interview with Politico.

"In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come," Obama added in language that underscored his new sense of urgency about the disaster.

The interview, conducted Friday, was released Sunday - and sparked an instant debate among some 9/11 family members.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... z0qpRpcNSh

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... years.html

Moby Grape · **Joined:** Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:19 pm **Posts:** 13802

the comments defending this worthless trash at the end of the article are priceless

''insipid smarthy antogonists''

is that you splacks? LOL!!!!!

Quote:

One-third of the way through Obama's term, are Americans tiring of a legislator as president?
Los Angeles Times, by Andrew Malcolm

American voters have taken many zigs and zags over the years when choosing their country's chief executive.

But one of the amazing consistencies is: They prefer chief executives in the executive office. Five of the last six presidents have been executives -- four governors and one sitting vice president.

The only exception is the current incumbent, Barack Obama, who as his bipartisan critics tried to point out in 2007-08, had never even run a candy store, let alone a country. He was a law lecturer, a state senator and, briefly, a U.S. senator. He is one of only three sitting senators elected president since the 19th century. Neither of the other two -- Warren Harding (see photo) and John Kennedy -- had second terms.

Overall, a new Rasmussen Reports poll indicated Wednesday, only 42% of Americans currently approve of Obama's job, while 57% disapprove. Or compare Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's 66% state approval for his hands-on spill work vs 60% disapproval for the presidential visits, all four of them now.

Fact is, the two main political parties didn't give American voters a....

read more

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washing ... dents.html

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