It’s been an interesting ten days for Obama (and the rest of us) . . .
Oil rig blows up, sinks, and unleashes a torrent of oil. It is Obama’s fault because he authorized offshore drilling and / or he didn’t respond quickly enough or in the right way.
A couple of FBI guys blow the tail on the Times Square bomber and Emirates doesn’t read their email. Still, in 54 hours we grab prime suspect number one before he leaves the country, manage not to read him his Miranda rights (that will never happen again) and more arrests have begun in Pakistan and elsewhere. It is Obama’s fault for not being in Time Square to personally apprehend the guy and/or direct the bomb squad, because the FBI lost site of the guy, and because Democrats are soft on terrorists.
“Ahmand in the dinner jacket” comes to town in the middle of the once every five year nuclear non-proliferation summit and makes a spectacle. It’s Obama’s fault for letting him in the country, for suggesting that talking to the guy made sense, for not allowing the Israelis to bomb Iran, for not being tough enough, and for not figuring out a way to isolate Iran even though Russia and China, and we know they do what we want, won’t go along.
Arizona detonates the national debate on Immigration (among other things). It’s Obama’s fault for not being born here, for being a socialist, for not having an answer, for not being able to tell Congress what to do and get them to do it, and for being a racist.
Lindsey Graham throws a shoe, first on Climate / Energy and then on Immigration. It’s Obama’s fault for being partisan, for not being able to work with the GOP, for not letting the GOP run everything even though he was the one that got elected by a landslide, for not being born here, and for having an agenda.
American Idol turns in another dumb week, ratings suffer, and Simon Cowell is even harder to fathom and stomach. It is Obama’s fault because Idol is on Fox and everything is Obama’s fault on Fox.
The only thing Obama and the Administration knew they were going to have to deal with going into last week was the UN. They could guess on Arizona. And I didn’t mention all the other inconsequential things like running two wars, trying to figure out if Europe and the Euro are going to incinerate and launch a full scale sovereign debt crisis, hosting the Navy football team, and the hundred other things that show up on his daily briefing that none of us know about.
Point one: To all the people who think Obama isn’t acting fast enough or up to your liking, get a clue. It’s been a bit of a week. In retrospect, the same could possibly have been said about W at Katrina but I still say he handled that one poorly (and there was advanced notice and a lot of it). Yeah, he signed up for the job but if you have to admit there have been a few things vying for his attention.
Point two: Everything is not Obama’s fault. Increase the budget and resources 100 times and a couple of flat foots can still blow a tail (just to pick one item). They got the bad guy. Yeah, not on the first trip wire but the backup systems worked. The same cannot be said for BP. Not to be too tart here, but in response to the conservative meme that government can do nothing well, and certainly nothing as well as private enterprise: I would score this one Government 1, private enterprise 0 in the overall competence category, at least in the HOLY %&^! category for this week.
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Amen, and amen.