Bits & Pieces - ObamAWOL

ObamAWOL

Bits ‘n Pieces

By Bob Robinson

President Barack Obama goes on national television to cover his (censored) on the BP oil crisis but it doesn’t help his Rasmussen approval rating. It remains at I believe an all-time low of -20 for the third day in a row. That translates to a 24 percent strong approval rating and a 44 percent strong disapproval rating.

This guy is a tremendous orator. That’s what got him elected. So why is he not getting a ratings boost any more when he goes on nationwide television to orate? Could it be that he’s been in office a year and a half and most Americans are wondering when he’s going to stop campaigning and start leading?

One writer, Erick Erickson, redstate.com, wrote: “Barack Obama gave the most depressing Oval Office speech since Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech. He didn’t just embrace defeat, he wore it on his suit as a substitute for an argyle sweater.”

Unfortunately, I was in a meeting all evening and couldn’t watch it. Which was probably good… I can’t afford to buy a new TV if the one I’m watching ends up with a shoe in it. However, I guess he didn’t get rave reviews. He seemed more concerned with kicking BP’s (censored) and promoting clean energy than he was with “plugging the damn hole.”

Some information came out from various sources in the last week that I didn’t know… yeah, yeah – no, I don’t know everything, but I am a political nut. If I haven’t heard it, I believe the vast majority of the American public (or as my Theatre professor put it four decades ago, “The Great Unwashed”) definitely wouldn’t know it.

Frightening not only that once again, our fearless leader dropped the ball, but that we had some of these restrictions in the first place. Here are the biggies:

Just now we are finding out that experts in the oil business, the Netherlands, offered their help shortly after the accident. He ignored them, or maybe he “politely declined.”

He refused (or didn’t know) to suspend the Jones Act, allowing foreign vessels to assist in a disaster in American waters without having to transfer equipment to American flagged vessels. Huh? We really have a regulation like that?

He didn’t suspend Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws to allow rapid deployment of new workers to help with containment. Good grief, government ineptitude is worse than I thought… but don’t worry, it gets even worse than that.

He didn’t suspend FEMA contracting and bidding rules to allow more rapid assignment of contracts to assist in the recovery efforts.

And he didn’t allow coastal governors to immediately begin dredging to create barrier islands. He didn’t talk to BP’s CEO to get on the same page regarding the point at which federal intervention was needed, or experts to get their ideas on what should be done.

What he did do was impose a deep water moratorium on drilling, further crippling coastal economies. Oh, and blame Bush, Congress and everyone else he could think of.

Good job, Mr. President. By the way… about the only thing George Bush didn’t do in the list above after Katrina was impose a moratorium on hurricanes.

We have much to be thankful for with Mr. Obama’s “Hope & Change” for America. We have Obamacare, Obamanomics, and now we have ObamAWOL.

Absent without leave in time of disaster.

Watch for more Bits ‘n Pieces as they occur. Good stuff? Bad stuff? You decide.

Bob Robinson is the retired editor of The Daily Advocate, Greenville, Ohio. If you wish to be notified when a blog is posted, send your email address to: opinionsbybob@gmail.com. You may also request to receive his That’s My Opinion and Verities or Balderdash columns by direct email.