Obama Disappoints From The Beginning Of His Speech
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Photo Credit To FreakingNews.com
Less than a minute into President Obama’s Oval Office address, my heart sank. For the umpteenth time since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began, an anxious nation was informed that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has a Nobel Prize. Obama’s speech pretty much went down hill from there.
For weeks, administration officials have been trumpeting Chu’s distinction at every opportunity. Earlier in the day, White House environmental guru Carol Browner cited the Nobel in a television interview. Presidential adviser David Axelrod talks about the Nobel all the time, as does Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. If there’s an official list of administration talking points about the response to the oil spill, “Chu’s Nobel” has to be at the top.
We can all applaud Chu’s accomplishment. But here’s the thing: Chu is a physicist, not an engineer or a biologist. His Nobel was awarded for the work he did in trapping individual atoms with lasers. He’s absurdly smart. But there’s nothing in his background to suggest he knows any more about capping an out-of-control deep-sea well, or containing a gargantuan oil spill, than, say, columnist Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel in economics. Or novelist Toni Morrison, who won the Nobel in literature.
In fact, Chu surely knows less about blowout preventers than the average oil-rig worker and less about delicate coastal marshes than the average shrimp-boat captain. His credentials, in this context, are meaningless. So do the president and his aides cite Chu’s beside-the-point Nobel to reassure Americans that the team handling the oil spill knows what it’s doing? Or are Obama, Browner, Axelrod, Gibbs and the others constantly trying to reassure themselves?
The president was cool, determined, forceful — stylistically, all the things that the braying commentators said he had to be. But where was the substance? Specifically — and urgently — where was the new plan to contain the oil spill and protect the coastline? I wish I’d heard the president order the kind of all-out marshaling and deployment of resources that now seems imperative. But I didn’t.
Instead, I heard about a special commission to study the accident. I heard about new leadership at the agency that oversees offshore drilling. I heard about a new long-term restoration plan for the gulf region. All of this is great — but what about the oil?
Obama’s real message was about the need to end America’s ruinous addiction to oil. But he didn’t lay the proper foundation for that important part of the speech. First, he needed to enlist Americans in a holy crusade to halt the worst environmental disaster in our history. Instead, he told us about Dr. Chu’s Nobel prize.
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Tags: anxious nation, coastal marshes, david axelrod, energy secretary, gulf of mexico oil, gulf of mexico oil spill, nobel prize, novelist toni morrison, obama, oil rig worker, paul krugman, presidential adviser, Robert Gibbs, secretary robert, shrimp boat captain, steven chu, television interview, umpteenth time
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