I fully accept the premise that the Gulf Oil spill is one of, if not the, most damaging and horrific environmental events of my life time. But WHY are we piling on President Obama because we don't like his "tone" in dealing with it?
Barack Obama has been elected to be President of the United States. Among the issue on his plate, today, are the attack on two mosques in Lahore, Pakistan. The standoff between North and South Korea, a situation so serious that China felt the need to try and calm the situation down. The continuing melt down in the Euro Zone, with terrific potential to bring the economy crashing back to bottom.
The ongoing crisis in Haiti. The intrusion of Brazil and Turkey into the nuclear issues surrounding Iran. The current blockade of 9 large relief ship headed to Gaza, by Israel. Two wars. And, they're STILL rioting in Africa!
If we profess to live in a Global World, a world in which every issue must be treated as effecting us, compromising our security, or effecting our economic well being, is it reasonable to expect the President to push everything else aside, concentrating only on the Bright Shiny Object that has our immediate attention?
And, does it make any sort of rational sense to criticize him for his "tone" in dealing with the Spill, when it is one of many complex events, fraught with danger, that currently occupy the Oval Office?
Why are we buying into the cable TV cant that characterizes every nuance, of every statement, as plus or minus on a scale of moral correctness? Why are we, who should be the intellectual weight that understands both the technical and the logistical problems the President confronts, joining the Republicans and the Hair-dos in finding fault with the failure to find an immediate solution to a problem that no one really knows how to deal with?
I voted for competence. For a technocrat. A deliberate, thoughtful, and brilliant man who would consider carefully before he donned a cod piece and declared "Mission Accomplished".
It would seem that is what I got.
Now I can't sit by and watch the shredding of those very virtues in the name of appealing to some fickle and imaginary "emotional/moral" tone that does not quite gel with the demands of our hysteria.