Another crisis not wasted

Following the Rahm Emanuel playbook, President Barack Obama is losing no time in taking full advantage of the Gulf oil spill crisis to further his far left agenda. When he was addressing the nation from the oval office last week, his tone and demeanor were combative, as his speech was filled with words and phrases that alluded to warfare.

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“Make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long as it takes,” the President intoned. “Tonight I'd like to lay out for you what our battle plan is going forward,” and then proceeded to use words and phrases like “mobilization,” “siege,” and a “determination to fight for the America we want for our children.” And as is standard operating procedure in exploiting any crisis, Mr. Obama reminded his audience that there was a “sense of urgency that this challenge requires.”

Lies, Untruths, Half truths, Innuendo

Of course, he also added his usual share of half-truths, untruths and innuendo to give a strong emotional context to his words and he chose to begin at the beginning: “First, the cleanup. From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation's history -- an effort led by Admiral Thad Allen, who has almost 40 years of experience responding to disasters. We now have nearly 30,000 personnel who are working across four states to contain and clean up the oil. Thousands of ships and other vessels are responding in the Gulf. And I've authorized the deployment of over 17,000 National Guard members along the coast. These servicemen and women are ready to help stop the oil from coming ashore, they're ready to help clean the beaches, train response workers, or even help with processing claims -- and I urge the governors in the affected states to activate these troops as soon as possible.” Truth of the matter is that Admiral Allen wasn’t appointed at “the very beginning,” but 10 days after the very beginning and the federal government at that time was clueless as to the actual extent of the disaster. It was the government of Sweden and the Netherlands that recognized the severity of the problem almost immediately, offering to send ships with oil-skimming booms three days after the initial explosion. According to Dutch Consul General for the Netherlands, Geert Visser, the US government refused to accept help in “a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.” Obama then went on to blame the disaster on George W. Bush with the statement:

“Over the last decade, this agency (Minerals Management Service-MMS) has become emblematic of a failed philosophy that views all regulation with hostility -- a philosophy that says corporations should be allowed to play by their own rules and police themselves. At this agency, industry insiders were put in charge of industry oversight. Oil companies showered regulators with gifts and favors, and were essentially allowed to conduct their own safety inspections and write their own regulations.”

In point of fact, prior to the explosion on the Deep Water Horizon, the MMS was headed up by Elizabeth Birnbaum, an Obama appointee who took over the agency in July 2009. In fact, just two weeks prior to the blowout, BP was slated to receive a citation for its exemplary record of safety. And yes, the president is correct in his assertion that as a regulatory body MMS was too cozy with the oil companies, but one wonders what exactly the administration did to fix this problem prior to the April 20 explosion. Obama then launched into what he really wanted to say all along, that Americans are profligate wastrels. Here’s how he put it: “But a larger lesson is that no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk. After all, oil is a finite resource. We consume more than 20 percent of the world's oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. And that's part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.” Again, Barack Obama isn’t exactly a paragon of truth in his assertion that we are running out of places to drill for oil. What we’re running out of is places for the government to prohibit drilling for oil, as all the most easily accessible areas in the US with oil and gas deposits are now all off limits. (As an aside, it was the Obama administration that made $2 billion available to Petrobras, the Brazilian national oil company to drill off its continental shelf at depths much greater than BP’s 5,000+ feet. And, oh yes, Obama supporter and confidante George Soros, just happens to be a major shareholder of Petrobras...hmmm)

The Big Lie, The Money Shot

Then the money shot, better known as the big lie: “The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America.” Really? If that’s the case, then why is China in the process of building some 80 coal-fired electricity generation facilities over the next few years? The president’s speech wasn’t so much about the Gulf’s environmental disaster as it was about laying the groundwork to get a draconian cap and trade law passed through Congress, one that would relegate America to the level of a third-world country by raising the cost of living to such an extent that suicide might be a more attractive financial strategy. But then, what else can one expect of the radical Left, but a plan that doesn’t raise the living standard of the poorest inhabitant on the planet, but lowers that of the wealthiest?

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