Resolve, not anger
Looking ahead to Obama's Oval Office address on the BP spill
Resolve, not anger
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
It's no mystery what President Obama will say tonight, in his first televised Oval Office address. He'll say that the worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history is sure to get worse before it gets better; that the federal government is taking steps to ensure, via actual oversight of the oil companies (as opposed to blind obeisance) that such a disaster can never happen again; that BP will be compelled, via the president's legal authority, to pay for its unconscionable sins down to the last dime; and lastly (good luck with this one), that the only way to truly ensure a greener future is for all car-loving, suburban-sprawling Americans to wean themselves of their addiction to oil.
Oh, and one more thing: According to the latest conventional wisdom, Obama needs to get really, really angry.
James Carville has said that the president needs to share his "rage." Matt Lauer has said that Americans need to see him "kick some butt." Roger Simon, the Politico columnist, asked Obama the other day, "You have to let people know you care, and people want to know (that the spill) matters to you...How do you move people on levels other than intellectual — on emotional levels?” Chris Matthews, on MSNBC last night, sputtered, "Why doesn't Obama grab the guy (BP CEO Tony Hayward)? Why doesn't he call him up and say, 'Hey, buddy, get your act together'?"
I'm not clear what people actually expect Obama to do. Gnaw the Oval Office carpet on live TV? Waterboard the BP officials with their own oil? Lock them in the White House basement and go medieval on them, a la Pulp Fiction?
But seriously, folks, if Obama bowed to conventional wisdom and totally lost his cool, the new conventional wisdom would decree that he was emotionally immature and, hence, unpresidential.
Ironically, the old conventional wisdom, circa 2007 and 2008, faulted Obama for supposedly engaging people's emotions too much. (Commentator Tom Bevan, in '07: "His brand is driven primarily by its emotional appeal." National Review's Jim Geraghty, April '08: Obama's emotional pitch "is just a variation of religious door-to-door salesmen showing up on your front stoop.") Today we apparently believe the opposite - that Obama has no emotional appeal - and now we want him to bond with our anger.
Fareed Zakaria, the Newsweek columnist, smartly noted the other day that this apparent need for an emoter-in-chief is actually a very recent development. Back in 1989, when the Exxon Valdez fouled the waters off Alaska, few in the commentariat demanded that President George H. W. Bush get mad and kick butt. Indeed, his administration ceded the entire cleanup to the oil industry, and a top Cabinet guy publicly stated that any government role would be "counterproductive."
Well, that laissez faire attitude won't do anymore. Obama tonight needs to make it clear that his government has taken the lead in this crisis; that BP will hop to its commands (rather than the reverse); and that, in the long term, he will persevere with steely resolve. That's the appropriate presidential emotion - at a time when 71 percent of Americans are now telling Gallup that they want him to be tougher on BP.
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By the way, here's our BP outrage of the day:
The BP "Call Center," located in west Houston, is supposed to be a conduit to the public. Twelve hours a day, the operators are taking lots of inquiries and complaints from people on the Gulf Coast who are freaked about the oil. But according to one operator - who this weekend spilled the beans to KHOU, a Houston television station - the Call Center is just a PR front, designed merely to give the appearance of BP outreach.
"We take all (the) information and then we have nothing to give them, nothing to give them," the operator said. "We’re a diversion to stop them from really getting to the corporate office, to the big people."
She said that she and her fellow employes are just warm bodies on the other end of the phone - and since they know that the calls will never be passed up the ladder, some don't even bother taking notes:
"They just put down, type 'blah blah blah.' No information, just 'blah blah blah.'"
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The sole proprietor of this blog is on the road for the month of June. Virtually all June posts will be briefer than the norm, except on the rare weekdays when posts won't show up at all. Apologies in advance for this disturbance in the force. The standard verbosity will return on Monday, June 28.
Day 57 & the President is giving speeches to sway public opinion that the federal govt. is in charge? If there was visible help on the ground he wouldn't need to sell it. 57 days later the post-Bush, post-Katrina federal govt. run by Pres. Obama & the democrats should be working to clean this mess up, not cast blame, not give speeches & certainly not publicly lash BP who they need to do the job, imho. We also need BP's stock price to stay high so they will have enough cash to do the job, by the way. I thought he could walk and chew gum at the same time? :)— NEPhilly- Day 57 & the President is giving speeches to sway public opinion that the federal govt. is in charge? If there was visible help on the ground he wouldn't need to sell it. 57 days later the post-Bush, post-Katrina federal govt. run by Pres. Obama & the democrats should be working to clean this mess up, not cast blame, not give speeches & certainly not publicly lash BP who they need to do the job, imho. We also need BP's stock price to stay high so they will have enough cash to do the job, by the way. I thought he could walk and chew gum at the same time? :)— NEPhilly
- Sorry:(— NEPhilly
- still_independent, no, not a natural disaster, but a disaster nonetheless. Obama stated that his ability to manage his campaign gave him the requisite experience to manage the government and manage a response to a disaster. Obama had so much compassion for the families of those killed in the explosion, it took him 50 dsys to meet with the families and during their memorial service he was on a plane to a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer. Maybe we should see how the feds handled the natural disaster in Tennessee, or maybe the natural disaster in Arkansas. Has anything on the fed response to either of those disasters been in the media? Obama has called some in Congress hypocrites for saying the feds should do more with regards to the cleanup. His stance is that those were the same ones who were saying Obama wanted the government to have total control over everything and the government should just stay out of the way. Well, there is a difference between a federal government that wants to order me to purchase health insurance versus a federal government which is responsible for maintaining federal waters. IMHO Obama and his minions see this disaster as just another political opportunity, and they will try to use it to the fullest extent possible.— tom - wilmington, de
- Noodlehead - It's called "campaigning", man.. If you're going to nail Obama for saying things like that, then nail every single politician out there. They all say the same things. Obama gets hammered for reneging on promises that he made during the campaign, but once he's in office, he gets more information that makes him break his promises. People criticize, but they fail to take a moment and step into the shoes of the Presidency.— middie
- PAEnglish - you keep posting that as if it matters. BP leased the rig from Transocean and assumed all risks and responsibilities for the entire drilling operation. This is on BP's head and it is going to roll.— CarmineDavito
I saw we bankrupt BP and hand the money over to the unions so that the Democrats can win the next election more handily than they would just on the basis of their indisputable handling of the economy, deficit, terrorism and wars.- Where Obama failed miserably is in the accepting of aid offered by other countries, such as Belgium, Russia, the UAE, as well as 11 other countries and the UN. Apparently it was due to Obama not wanting to waive the "Jones Act" that prevented this assistance, until very recently, from being accepted. From an Arkansas television website..."The State Department says officials are considering offers of assistance from 13 countries and the United Nations to help with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico are among those offering equipment and experts in containing and cleaning up the leak from the BP oil rig that exploded April 20. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday that the Coast Guard is evaluating the needs of the cleanup operation and will decide what, if any, aid to accept in the coming days. Also offering aid are Britain, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the U.N. Environmental Program." Any explanation from any Obama supporters as to just why none of this aid was accepted other than the president and his team saw the political opportunity presented by this leak for their cap and tax agenda?— tom - wilmington, de
- FYI - that story was posted 40 days ago.— tom - wilmington, de
- I have yet to see a constructive suggestion from anyone who is criticizing Obama as to what else he should be doing. The media and the wingnut crowd seem to think it would be helpful if he would jump up & down whilst flapping his arms and shrieking like a little girl, but I really do think that would neither plug the leak nor make the oil disappear.— Mr. Green Genes
CarmineDavito Thats because it does matter!, BP leased the rig, BP payed Haliburton to operate the rig, BP payed Coleman to supply safety valves that failed but the anti British rhetoric from the child in chief ignores that. BP should pay but spare us the hand wringing the US has been the worlds biggest poluter for decades only now though does it matter. Tell me Carmine who head rolled after the union carbide disaster? nobodies this country still refuses to extradite the CEO of that company to India to face charges for the manslaughter of 15,000 people. People in glass houses Carmine.— PAEnglish- PAEnglish - The "stop the anti-british rhetoric" argument is full of problems. The best ammunition for the argument is that Obama called BP, "British" Petroleum, when it has changed his name. Other than that there is nothing speciifcally anti british from Obama. You can nail him for this, and it would stick, *if* it weren't for the fact that this same argument hinges on the fact that BP is not a British company, when in fact, if you read any article, you see a lot of hand wringing from the Brits about losing their pensions and the financial damage of sagging BP stock. So what is it? Is BP an international company (it seems to be when they want to avoid taking the blame) or is it a british company (it seems to be when they are interested in protecting the assets of british nationals)? You can't have both! If BP is an international company then anti BP rhetoric is strictly that, anti-BP the MultiNatCorp... but no, there are voices in Britain who equate anti-BP rhetoric with anti British rhetoric. How can this be when BP is supposedly an international company? Do you see where the argument falls apart? The way I see it, it is a lot of hot air from British conservative voices to stoke up some juice. The fact is that BP was indeed calling the executive shots as news shows: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100614/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_washington When war crimes are committed do you prosecute the soldiers or the generals? And finally, to your statement about the US causing lots of pollution... sure. Nevertheless, this spill is now widely regarded as the wort economic catastrophe. The British crying about their pensions should book a trip to Mississippi and talk to some shrimpers.— puttinonthefoil
- Mr. Green Genes, he could have accepted the assistance offered by others, such as the Dutch who offered four ships with skimmers and boom three days after the leak began. All Obama had to do was suspend the Jones act, which was done by other presidents, such as by Bush during Katrina. This would not have stopped the leak, but it could have prevented some of the devastation to the coast and the industries that rely on it. Like I said, seems Obama and his White House were more interested in how they could play this politically to further their agenda than they were in helping the people impacted by the oil.— tom - wilmington, de
- foil, is GM an American company, or is it an international company. If it is an international company, then why did we (the US taxpayer) bail them out with TARP money. We should have had the IMF or the famous "international community" bail them out. See how ridiculous your argument sounds? BP is a multinational company in that they operate in more than one country, but they have a lot of their stock owned by British senior citizens who rely on the dividend income. Same as GM with UAW retirees relying on their pensions and health benefits, but by your argument we should have ignored all that when deciding to bail them out.— tom - wilmington, de
- mmmm? Obama gets a lot of money from BP according to this article........................ This stuff really makes me wonder. Obama also rakes in the money from Goldman Sachs and the health insurance industry............ mmmmmm?............................ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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