A few days ago I wrote that I thought Obama was getting bad advice. After tonight’s speech – more evidence of that – I have to take it further and allow that he’s the one taking that advice. Tonight’s speech was so insufficient. So lacking. And wow, so short. Has a president ever before addressed the nation for only sixteen minutes?
I think the folks at MSNBC – every hair in place – were ready to do some serious and lengthy analysis. But they’d pretty much said all they had to say and shut it down after their own 16 minutes.
I’m almost afraid of the reaction. Or worse, the lack.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
Man, I totally agree. I was like, WTF???
Where was the forceful message that every boom and oil sucker, and whatever the hell all the equipment is, has been brought to bear on the Gulf?
Where was the forceful message that good, competent, dependable government MATTERS?
Where was the forceful message that, absent intelligent regulation, huge corporate enterprises really are capable of making mistakes big enough to seriously harm us all?
FDR rallied the country to face the Depression and WWII; Ike called on us to build national superhighways; JFK inspired us to leave our planet — and to return; LBJ made us feel it was safe to lay down racial arms; Nixon to visit China; Reagan to ‘Tear down this wall!’; Clinton to dismantle the welfare state; Bush 43 to send our men and women into far-off and vaguely at best understood fields of death.
Okay, maybe the Gulf disaster doesn’t quite measure up to those epic historical moments. But it’s a pretty damned big thing. And Obama played it like he was announcing a damned Labor Department undersecretary appointment.
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