Patterico's Pontifications

6/12/2010

Not-So-Super Obama (Updated 2)

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 1:31 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Presidents say the darnedest things (at 3:00 minutes):

“Even though I’m president of the United States, my power is not limitless,” he told Grand Isle, La., locals in the video, released Friday. “So I can’t dive down there and plug the hole. I can’t suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hard-working smart people in place … to implement this thing.”

Hmmm. Maybe Obama knows he’s not Superman after all.

— DRJ

UPDATE — About those “hard-working, smart” people Obama put in place to handle this — maybe they should have someone read their Congressional mail:

Coast Guard Head Was Informed of Maine Oil Boom on 5/21. Yesterday, He Claimed He Didn’t Know
***
The curious case of the lack of interest in Packgen’s boom gets curiouser and curiouser. Yesterday, ABC News had an interview with Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. After a handful of questions about the flow of oil into the Gulf from the wellhead, the topic turned to mitigation of the spill. Here’s the exchange:

Jake Tapper, ABC: I talked to a guy who runs a company in Maine that offers boom, and he has — he says — the ability to make 90,000 feet of boom a day. High quality. BP came there 2 weeks ago, looked at it, they are doing another audit today. He is very frustrated, he says he has a lot of high quality boom to go and it is taking a long time for BP to get its act together. Don’t you need this boom right now?

Allen: Oh we need all the boom wherever we can get it. If you give me the information off camera I’ll be glad to follow up.

There was no need for the admiral to ask for the information from Jake Tapper. It’s contained in a letter that has been on the admiral’s desk since May 21st. The letter was also sent to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. Copies were sent to Governors Bob Riley, Charles Crist, Haley Barbour, and Bobby Jindal. The letter was signed by two U.S. senators.”

UPDATE — From Hot Air:

“Lt. Cmdr. J.R. Hoeft (USN), the Online Communications Coordinator for the Unified Area Command – Joint Information Center, sent this note:

The boom manufactured by Packgen did not pass an initial quality control test. Boom is subjected to great wear and tear when placed in the water and must be frequently tended. In order to retain its effectiveness boom must be of high quality. Once Packgen’s boom passes inspection, the company can be considered as a source for supplying boom to the largest oil spill response operation in U.S. history. In the meantime, suitable boom is being identified and obtained quickly and there is currently 459,000 feet of boom stored in the region in addition to the 2.24 million feet deployed.”

I certainly hope this is evidence that the government is competently following up on legitimate offers of supplies and assistance. However, I’m curious when the boom was inspected and how he knows it will pass inspection if it didn’t originally.

64 Responses to “Not-So-Super Obama (Updated 2)”

  1. “Official” White House video clips are strange, aren’t they?

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  2. “Honest, hard-working people”? Well, that leaves out the Executive branch!

    Icy Texan (11677d)

  3. I updated the post.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  4. Get used it this. This is the news of the future.

    Arizona Bob (e8af2b)

  5. I would love to see all government emails mention Pakgen and their offer. I hope to hell the Maine sisters don’t let this drop.
    And this may be the wedge issue that opens their eyes to Obama’s true nature.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  6. There’s your guvmint inaction in action!

    Icy Texan (11677d)

  7. I used to think Barry was smart, slick, socialist. I now realize–and America is coming to see as well, hence the poll #s–that he’s dumb, smarmy, a communist. Heaven help us all.

    Kevin Stafford (abdb87)

  8. The company making the booms didn’t contribute to the ‘won’ so pi** on them and the hundreds of miles of shoreline they could have helped save. Anyone want to bet that’s why a contact was not immediately released for the booms.

    Scrapiron (4e0dda)

  9. Wow, incompetence vs corruption… it’s too hard to call.

    Pons Asiorum (0ae484)

  10. Funny enough, the one area in which Barry excels is sucking.

    Gazzer (d79016)

  11. Thad Allen was replaced on 5/25 as Commandant of the Coast Guard by Adm. Robert J. Papp, Jr. upon Allen’s retirement from active duty.
    Since Allen has been in the Gulf area since early May, this letter was probably routed to Adm. Papp during the change of command.

    Also, it appears that the real authority for this situation resides on Carol Browner’s desk at the White House, as it looks like all big decisions have to be routed through her (and the President?).

    AD - RtR/OS! (c1f0da)

  12. Adm. Allen remains incident commander in the Gulf even after his retirement so he should still be on the mailing list. His retirement was pushed back to July 1, although he did cede command of the Coast Guard on May 26.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  13. Of course then there is always the union thugs … why the skimmers didn’t show up … The Jones Act.

    bill-tb (541ea9)

  14. When one looks at the incident in its entirety, one could come to the conclusion this was all part of some plan. No one would do something that would cost lives would they? What were the exceptions granted BP in drilling that well and who signed off on them? Obama should send Michele down to the wellhead in a minisub to check it out rather than walk the beaches in suit pants and white shirt with rolled up sleves to appear to be doing something picking pieces of tar balls. Why is he not where the damage is like Bush would have done?

    Zelsdorf Ragshaft III (d76ab0)

  15. Since that letter was addressed to Adm. Allen in his position as Commandant, and he was spending so much time in the Gulf in his function as Incident Commander, I bet that it got dropped on Papp’s desk during the transition, which is why Allen never saw it at the time.
    Since it was also sent to Salazar and Napolitano, neither of whom seems to have the authority to do anything but make fools of themselves, I can understand why no action was taken.
    I just feel that Browner, in her position as Guardian of the Earth, has ultimate authority, and nobody was pressing her, and this info just either never got to her, or she felt it didn’t fit the agenda – just like suspending the Jones Act so that those foreign-flagged/crewed vessels could lend assistance.

    AD - RtR/OS! (c1f0da)

  16. Anybody see the picture that FOX used to illustrate the phone call to British PM Cameron? Released by the official White House photographer. Obama in what looked like a polo shirt. Anyone else struck by anything in the photo?

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  17. Possible answers:

    Is Pakgen owned by Republicans? Is it a non-union shop?

    Patricia (160852)

  18. AD,

    I’m not getting your point.

    Let’s assume Allen never saw the letter. If that’s the case, it doesn’t say much for his staff or for his successor’s staff. Can you imagine any business where the chief executive gets a letter from members of the board of directors and fails to send it to the guy in charge? Or where the staff sits on the letter?

    I know it happens but it doesn’t look good when it does. And it contradicts a claim that there are “hard-working, smart” people in charge.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  19. Two thoughts:

    1. In the quote from Obama, he has done his default action, set up a straw man and go from there.

    No one with a half-functioning brain thinks Obama has limitless power, and to start from that point is assinine and an insult to thinking people. It is patronizing. He should assume his audience has enough brains to know he isn’t all powerful, no matter what he has claimed. But he sets up the straw man, “if I was all powerful, then you could blame me, but I’m not, so you can’t”.

    2. Is it possible he and his Chicago buddies are so used to calling the shots on their agenda and turning to their resources that they have no clue on how to access info and ability beyond their own circle of contacts? And since Chicago doesn’t do deep water wells they are clueless??

    It seems unfathomable that in a time of relative emergency and crisis, that senators, governors, cabinet secretaries, coast guard, and administration contacts cannot communicate basic facts in order to deal with the crisis. Is it really possible that because the Maine senators as well as Jindahl are all republicans that no one in the Obama administration will take their calls?? I mean, all of these people, as well as the Coast Guard officers, have secretaries and staff, don’t they? Assuming they do and are minimally competent, what keeps a secretary (with a little s) from reading a letter that says “we’ve got an answer to the oil spill” and letting the boss know.

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  20. @MD in Philly — 6/12/2010 @ 5:25 pm +100

    Another guy was on the John & Ken Show yesterday talking about his company’s ability to provide 2MM pounds of highly absorbent material per week. It is a product proven effective in “pulling and holding oil” out of seawater. He is just one distributor out of many for this product, but nobody in the Obama administration will give him the time of day despite him making multiple attempts over weeks to get his message heard.

    Sure they are thousands of people offering quack fixes, but there must be some way to vet and triage the opportunities. If someone can show an ability to deliver 2MM pounds of an absorbent within 48 hours, then 2MM/wk thereafter, he is obviously not Uncle Fester talking about something he cooked up in his bathtub last night.

    A competent administration would be testing dozens of these ideas simultaneously – not saying thanks but no thanks.

    in_awe (44fed5)

  21. I just saw on Huckabee two things, one was a fellow with an absorbant made basically from peat that was demonstrated live (maybe the same thing you saw, in_awe).

    The other was an interview the the fire chief of some small town in Ala. They wanted to put some barges and booms out to keep the oil from getting into the bay/on shore, etc. After weeks of getting nowhere with the Feds and State officials on approval of their plans, he basically told them, “We’re going to do it, whether you like it or not.” Apparently at some point the Governor gave him a blessing and told him to go ahead, whether he had the authority or not.

    It appears to me that this is nothing more than a bunch of bureaucrats pulling out their hair, and because there isn’t an exact protocol to follow all they can do is say, “No, we can’t give you permission to do that, we don’t know if that will work, we don’t know what negative effects it might have” all the whil damage is happening and nothing is getting done.

    A larger scale of the “Rescue Me” thread. To get something done requires someone who cares more about the problem than about regulations for regulations sake.

    And these are the people that want to run the health system, engineer and build cars, increase oversight and intervention into the financial sector, and are entrusted with the responsibility for the national defense.

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  22. We can only hope that the grassroots “can do spirit” continues to come back and people just jump in and do things themselves. It could actually snowball into more people realizing that government can be the problem not the solution and rethink the level of support they have been giving big government politicians…We can only hope.

    in_awe (44fed5)

  23. Ok I found the picture that I was talking about in comment #16.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4693094277//
    Does anyone else get the same thought from that photo that I do? Idon’t want to say too much and taint the jury here.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  24. Have Blue, my first thought is what Ronald Reagan said about wearing a suit in the Oval Office.

    Some chump (967a70)

  25. My first thought is that he has his first two fingers on his cheek, so he’s not making an obscene gesture this time.

    My second thought is he looks quite casual, as if the discussion was not very important, or that he is thinking about something else.

    My third thought is that Jimmy Carter always made it a point to wear sweaters, etc. And not only Reagan but George W. said he always wore a suit because of the dignity of the office.

    As to the last point, I appreciate the idea that the president should not appear to be a pompous monarch, but rather approachable to the “common man”. But one can be approachable to the “common man” and still wear a suit and tie, or be pompous and unapproachable even with casual clothes.

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  26. MD in Philly – In Great Britain the FU gesture is delivered with the first two fingers. Which is why when you use the peace sign in Britain you make sure your palm faces your target and not yourself.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  27. Have Blue

    I’ll have to explain my reaction to your information, this may not work, but here I go.

    Remember Bo Jackson years ago, who played both pro football and pro baseball? He started making ads (forget what he was advertising) that showed him playing football and some other football star says, “Bo knows football”, then Bo playing baseball and another baseball star says, “Bo knows baseball”. Then Bo is shown playing basketball, and Jordan says, “Bo knows basketball too”. Then Bo is on the tennis court, and they cut to an incredulous McEnroe shaking his head and exclaiming, “Bo knows tennis?” From there we go to a hockey rink with Bo supposedly out on the ice (not sure if he was or not), and a close up of Gretzky shaking his head and just saying, “No”.

    At the idea of the British form of obscene gesture I just had to do a Gretzky and shake my hind and silently mutter “No”. Is that what you were thinking of???

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  28. MD – A month or two ago Obama was photographed talking on the phone with Netanyahu while sitting at his desk with his foot up and the sole of his shoe in the foreground almost obscuring him from view it was so prominent in the frame.
    We remember from the campaign the use of the occasional gesture of hidden and deniable contempt.

    Just struck me as interesting.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  29. I mean you saw the geture and thought that it might be a gesture of contempt – except that he used two fingers. In Britain that gesture will be immediately recognized.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  30. Have Blue,

    Is it insulting to hold up the first 2 fingers, even if they are together? It’s a close call in Obama’s photo, but I thought the insulting gesture was only when the 2 fingers are apart and make the V-sign (with, as you said, the palm facing in).

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  31. Your description of the Netanyahu picturs gives me another “Gretzky”. Is it the Arabs who consider pointing your foot at someone to be an insult? Is the photographer in on this??

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  32. I have heard it described as an insult generally in the Middle-East among both Arabs an Jews.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  33. I’m tempted to say the official photographer takes too many of these questionable photos for it to be a coincidence. What amazes me is why they post them.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  34. DRJ – Don’t know how far apart the fingers have to be to be truly insulting, but scratching your nose is not inherently insulting either.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  35. I’m getting dizzy from doing too many “Gretzkys”. I’m going to need to go lay down and go to bed, and hopefully not dream about this…

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  36. DRJ – How is it insulting if the picture isn’t publicized? The passive-aggressive, “Ooh I’m insulting you but you can’t prove it,” only works if the photo is released to the world. If anyone complains they are thin skinned and paranoid. Remember the pig just needs lip stick.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  37. Because I still don’t want to believe he’s that juvenile and dumb.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  38. A competent administration would be testing dozens of these ideas simultaneously – not saying thanks but no thanks.

    And that’s the rub right there. I’ve heard plenty of lefties the past couple of weeks saying, “Well, do you want him to do something or not–make up your mind!”

    That’s not the point–these government programs, regulations, and agencies are supposedly in place to provide oversight in normal times, and direction and assistance when things go wrong. These agencies are huge, employ thousands of people, and in practice are accountable to no one but themselves. It costs taxpayers millions, if not billions, per year to fund these agencies on the assumption that they will do the job they are being paid to do.

    If these agencies (and the administration that runs them) aren’t going to step up and do what the taxpayers are funding them to do, then what’s the point of having them around and funding them in the first place? This spill would be spewing oil into the Gulf whether or not these agencies existed–so if they aren’t going to earn their taxpayer-funded paychecks, then why not just eliminate them, save the taxpayers millions a year in bureaucratic fraud, waste, and abuse, and let BP hang itself on its own and allow the Gulf states figure out their own solutions without any input from the Feds?

    Or are people so fearful of actual 19th century republican federalism making a comeback that they’d rather watch the President and his staff flail about impotently than admit that their own vision of a robust, all-things-to-all-people federal government might not stand up to reality?

    Another Chris (121ff0)

  39. Well said, Another Chris.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  40. Another Chris:

    I wish I had said that. And I will.

    Ag80 (1b8eea)

  41. Comment by DRJ — 6/12/2010 @ 5:23 pm

    Sorry about the delayed response, my mind (and eyes) have been focused on LeMans.

    I don’t have a very high degree of regard for most of what passes these days for the “National Command Authority”.
    I personally think that Allen is a pretty good guy, but I don’t think that the corruption of power is incapable of grasping him into its clutches.
    I just think that Browner has interjected herself into this and I didn’t think she was a very good administrator when she was at EPA under Clinton, and my impression hasn’t improved.
    We know that this WH is incapable of making timely decisions, and I think that this fits that model.
    This calls for a realistic Copngressional examination of the neccessity of having “Czars”, and how Congress can oversee their actions if it determines that they are even useful and should be continued. As it is now, they are pretty much unaccountable as long as they are doing the President’s bidding; and as we’ve seen, this President is unaccountable since he has given great deference to the Congress in the writing of legislation, and the Press is on Holiday enjoying their “tingles”.
    And, I think this can be charitably labeled as an example of the Vast, Hide-bound Bureaucracy caught once again in the LaBrea Tar Pits – the safest course of action is to say NO!, unless you can not say anything at all.

    AD - RtR/OS! (c1f0da)

  42. deer in headlights look
    mask falls off old lone ranger
    november tuesday

    ColonelHaiku (79bc23)

  43. No President is Superman. We all just want to believe they are.

    JEA (54b5f3)

  44. This president, all his adult life, has had the pattern of calling a plumber for leaks, then going back to his contemplation of Niebuhr. This messy, dirty stuff is what little people do. The people who didn’t go to Harvard.

    Mark Steyn’s column on this yesterday was so good I did a post of my own on it. Steyn has his number.

    Mike K (82f374)

  45. We all just want to believe they are.

    No, children want to believe they are.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  46. no not superman
    a weak-livered pole-cat
    no mojo krypton

    ColonelHaiku (79bc23)

  47. #37 DRJ:

    Because I still don’t want to believe he’s that juvenile and dumb.

    Reread Kevin Stafford’s comment #7:

    I used to think Barry was smart, slick, socialist. I now realize–and America is coming to see as well, hence the poll #s–that he’s dumb, smarmy, a communist. Heaven help us all.

    Sadly, he is as Kevin describes. And juvenile to boot.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  48. We will now be treated to a prime-time TOTUS-reading Tuesday night, likely yo hear about how great Teh Won has been doing kicking ass and trying to push around a private company. I really do not like him.

    JD (d9926c)

  49. kick ass take names and
    doing it for the children
    BP shrimp on grill

    ColonelHaiku (79bc23)

  50. No, children want to believe they are.

    Exactly so – and the Dems made the US public act like children during their screechfest during Katrina. No mention about the role of 1st responders, the failure of the mayor and Governor to allow the National Guard to immediately help in the evacuations and clean – up, and so on. They’re reaping what they’ve sown, hope they enjoy the schadenfreude.

    Dmac (3d61d9)

  51. You have to buy some guy’s product….
    just because they start making it and they think you should? I thought you guys understood business. Pakgen took a risk and is running a PR campaign to shame people to buy it.

    http://www.csnphilly.com/pages/landing_truthrumors_bball?blockID=246621&tagID=73682

    I have some left over trailers from Katrina you can buy too.

    murray (c8147d)

  52. You have to buy some guy’s product….
    just because they start making it and they think you should? I thought you guys understood business.

    It’s the way Democrats do business!

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  53. caveat emptor
    obama pre-owned cars
    there Yugo again

    ColonelHaiku (79bc23)

  54. forget leaking oil
    what product can sop up all
    obama bullshit?

    ColonelHaiku (79bc23)

  55. Does anyone here believe George W. Bush or William J. Clinton were supermen either?

    JEA (54b5f3)

  56. haiku humbly ask
    jea not progeny
    clinton and albright?

    ColonelHaiku (79bc23)

  57. Does anyone here believe

    that JEA ever engages his brain before he posts anything?

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  58. #55 – Comment by ColonelHaiku — 6/13/2010 @ 10:16 am

    That must be among the best. It deserves to lead off the poetry section in “PP’s Quotations and other Important Stuff”.

    Nobel Prize deserved
    in something for the one who
    can make that product.

    MD in Philly (5a98ff)

  59. Here,/a.ahref= is the 2 fingered salute as demonstrated by one Steve McQueen with some background on how it came to mean F-you.

    Gazzer (d79016)

  60. Oops. Does that feature no longer work, or did I screw up? Let’s try again. Here

    Gazzer (d79016)

  61. Does anyone here believe George W. Bush or William J. Clinton were supermen either?

    No, because neither claimed to heal our planet and keep the oceans from rising. What kind of an ass makes this kind of statement and does so with a straight face?

    Dmac (3d61d9)

  62. …and what does that make those who voted for him? Hee – haw!

    Dmac (3d61d9)

  63. Compared to the efforts of Lord Obama’s minions, the Bush administration’s response to Katrina was precise, well targeted, and a model of federal efficiency. The One and those put in charge by him — including apparently Adm. Allen — don’t seem to have a clue. Offers of assistance from foreign governments are declined or ignored. Suppliers of boom materials are forgotten. And the honest hard working people of the Gulf coast who are most effected by this disaster, the fishermen, boat owners, and those who make a living from the Gulf, are rejected in favor of cronies of Obama and BP. What a friggin joke

    Jaime (f990e2)


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