That should be the political message of the Democrats & the Obama administration. They should remind America that the Democrats once had a sound, forward thinking energy plan to reduce our nation's reliance on oil. It was proposed by Jimmy Carter and completely dismantled by Ronald Reagan.
Maybe they are saying it. Maybe they are reminding the nation of Carter in his sweater, and how the Republicans laughed at him. Maybe they are drawing a direct line from Ronald Reagan's dismantling of the Solar Panels Carter had installed atop the White House to that unending video of the water blossoming out of that ruptured pipe like some obscenely flowering monster plant. Maybe the Democrats are taking advantage of this to get back on the political offensive.
But I haven't heard it. Now true, I don't watch every cable news show or read every newspaper. And I certainly don't read too many blogs or websites, not even this one. Liberals' never ending talent for self immolation bores me, and I lost interest in reading the catty, Oscar Wildesque replies to people's diaries after the first time I did so. Too many of us use this website and others to practice our "witty repartee" and to try to impress (seriously!) others with our ability to be oh so biting, cutting, and of course, to show our intellectual superiority to each other (SERIOUSLY!). Conservatives who read this website must be hi-fiving each other ad nauseum, as we once again prove to be our own worst enemies.
So I don't know if anyone in the Democratic party or in the Obama administration is taking advantage of this opportunity to place the blame for this disaster squarely where it belongs, and I don't mean just on Cheney and his secret energy panel. No, this disaster had its seeds planted in 1981, when Ronald Reagan and the GOP with GREAT GLEE dismantled all aspects of Carter's energy plan. This is the reason why we are 30 years late on wind power, solar power, and other oil alternatives. Drill Baby Drill didn't start with Sarah Palin, and a good political strategy would be to chain the Republican Party to that leaky pipe gushing Oil into the Gulf.
But that would require a smart, coherent political plan, and sad to say, that's been lacking from this Administration & the Democratic Party since the day after the Inauguration. This President rode a wave of Populist anger to the White House, a wave that their campaign operatives in large measure created, and nurtured. Obama not only talked about Change, he EMBODIED IT. Yet almost before the trash was picked up from the Mall after the Inauguration, the Administration was busy morphing into The Establishment! In one of the most amazing political miscalculations that I have seen in my 54 years of life, the Obama Administration succeeded in one year in go from the "Agents of Change" to "Those that must be Changed". I wouldn't have thought that such a complete and quick transformation was possible, but they surprised even me. First thing they did was tell all of US, the Progressives who got him into the White House, "Thanks, but we can take it from here." They told the Progressive Movement as well as all the wide eyed kids who got involved in politics for the first time ever expecting real change, "You guys were great, but your services aren't needed anymore". Now I'm not going to go into all the examples of this, all the ways that the Obama administration bailed out on the Progressive movement. There were many examples of this. Basically, we are all just happy that Obama isn't Bush. He might not have done much more than that, but for many of us Progressives, not being Bush is still pretty good.
But they have really blown it politically, in many ways. That Movement that got Obama into office cannot be counted on in 2010 or in 2012. They have allowed the Far Right to outflank them and have ceded the political MOMENTUM to the likes of The Tea Party. As a hopeful progressive, I HOPE that he can turn things around. One of the ways this can be done is by putting forth a new, far reaching Energy Plan for the future, and to remind the American people that every tar ball, every dead pelican, every oil choked dolphin is a direct result of Republican policies. The message should be simple: GOP = OIL SPILL, and it needs to be repeated over and over again. After all, this message has one big thing going for it - it's TRUE!