 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 3, 2010
/ 21 Sivan 5770 5770
Obama's Katrina: The Politics of It Is Oily, Too
By
Paul Greenberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
If you missed the president's news conference Thursday, his first in 10 months, here's a succinct summary: It was about the oil spill. And it's mainly somebody else's fault.
Whose? BP's or the previous administration's (his favorite scapegoat even though he's been president now for some 16 months). Or it's the fault of unnnamed "federal agencies" he really has nothing to do with, or the "culture" of the oil industry and government regulation thereof, or ... you name it.
This he called taking responsibility.
Yes, the president admitted his administration was too slow when it came to preventing the catastrophe, and "I take responsibility for that. There wasn't sufficient urgency in terms of the pace of how those changes needed to take place. Obviously, they weren't happening fast enough."
But that confession required only seconds; the rest of his hour-long press conference was pretty much devoted to how other people hadn't done their jobs. You'd think he was back on the campaign trail attacking the president. Somebody ought to tell him he's the president now.
Nothing has been so revealing of this commander-in-chief's lack of military training than his response or lack thereof to this long, slowly but ever deepening crisis. Because instead of just saying, "No excuse, sir," and clearing the air, there he was at still another rostrum last week talking, talking, talking ... instead of clearly acting on the ground, or rather in the water. The sludge, both physical and political, just keeps coming.
Campaigning and governing mix in a republic, and certainly in a democracy. It's hard to draw the line between spirit and substance. Which was it that buoyed the country when FDR and later Ronald Reagan lifted the nation's morale -- their sublime confidence or actual policies? The two mixed. But in this administration, they begin to separate -- as clearly as oil and water. Disenchantment sets in, and with it failure.
This administration, the president wants us to know, has been on this crisis since, yes, Day One: "Those who think we were either slow on the response or lacked urgency, don't know the facts. This has been our highest priority."
That's nice. But if the administration really has acted quickly, urgently, then why did his Director of Minerals Management have to resign just hours before his press conference? Was it just a coincidence? Did she just happen to pick this time to decide she needed some down time?
The director -- S. Elizabeth Birnbaum. Esq. -- left "on her own volition," announced Ken Salazar, who is still secretary of the Interior. Is it only the lower-downs in this administration who have enough shame to submit their resignation when things go terribly wrong on their watch? Who knows? Not the president. When asked about it, he said he'd just heard about the resignation that day, and didn't "know the circumstances in which this occurred." That was just after he'd got through explaining yet again how on top of things he's been.
So whom are you going to believe, the president's description of this administration as responsive and fast-acting, moving urgently to contain the catastrophe, or your own lying eyes?
Down in Louisiana, the Cajun Cato himself, James Carville, sounded less like the defender of the administration he's consistently been and more like another worried, frustrated and impatient Louisianan. The president, he complained, "just looks like he's not involved in this. Man, you got to get down here and take control of this and put somebody in charge of this thing and get this thing moving. We're about to die down here."
The moral of this story: When it's your own shoreline that's in danger, it kind of changes your perspective. It gives you, in the words of that scholarly work of political science, "A Boy Named Sue," a different point of view. (Cash, J.) That's when politics stops being some kind of abstract, spectator sport and becomes a matter of life and death. Mr. Carville has started sounding like Randy Newman singing the Looziana Blues: "Louisiana, Louisiana, they're tryin' to wash us away...." Again. In oil this time.
Last time, it was Katrina. By the time George W. Bush finally jettisoned his flood czar, Michael "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job" Brown, much of the damage -- human and political -- had been done. In the end, having to work with a bumbling governor and an equally inept but raging mayor of New Orleans, that president tried to muddle through -- and failed miserably. Finally, much too late, he found his can-do man in Lieut. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, U.S.A., a commander even Ragin' Ray Nagin, aforesaid joker of a mayor, had to approve of.
As soon as the Creole Napoleon landed, he could be seen all over the streets of the flooded city barking orders at mere colonels. Or as Mayor Nagin had to admit: "Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is Gen. Honoré. And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussin' and people started movin'. And he's getting some stuff done."
But where is this president's General Honoré? Happily, Louisiana now has a governor who actually seems to know his business -- Bobby Jindal -- but the feds keep dragging their feet whenever he makes recommendations. Such as: Quick, build barrier islands. (And send the bill to BP.) Quick, get out of the way and let city and parish officials protect their people and resources. Quick, get Louisiana more booms to ward off the approaching tide of gunk before the Gulf Coast starts to look like one big used oil filter.
The last president we had was done in by a natural disaster; this one could be done in by an unnatural one. One president demonized by his kneejerk critics was enough. Please, not again. Barack Obama needs to find his General Honoré in a hurry. Wouldn't it be something if he chose this young, energetic, proven governor to lead the charge? Even if Bobby Jindal is a Republican. At last Barack Obama would begin to carry out his promise to be a leader who can work across party lines to get things done. And, boy, does something need to get done. Like yesterday. No, last month. 'Cause they're washing Louisiana away again. And ain't nobody in charge.
Paul Greenberg Archives
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
© 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|
Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman
Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman
Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|
