Alright, I've had enough of this!
It is very clear that Obama has failed to do everything possible to stop the leak, prevent future damage to the Gulf of Mexico's coastline, and to help control the fears and concerns of local residents.
In this, I totally agree with our Republican friends.
And as you've no doubt heard many times before, there's a big "butt" coming.
I'll take this in three separate points, each of which shows a distinctive and disconnected viewpoint, (see also "Epistemic Closure") showing how we've reached the point in our nation's political discourse where political philosophy has been totally eroded by political expedience. In essence, the message has destroyed the meaning, reality has been subverted once again by spin and the only real conservatives left in this nation have for the most part, divorced themselves from the party of conservatives.
Obama has failed to stop the leak:
Well, I didn't know he had the equipment, training, experience, or legal capability to do so! The mantra of the Republicans for the last several decades has been, private enterprise is more capable of handling big jobs than the Federal government. It seems this is clearly the case, except where private enterprise has failed, in which case (get this laugh) there wasn't sufficient government regulation or oversight.
In order to be polite, I will refrain from saying what I really feel, and simply exclaim with more than sufficient exclamation marks, WTF!!!!!! Dudes, are you admitting that your entire philosophical premise is wrong? Are you claiming that the government CAN do a good job, is capable of providing sufficient quality goods or services to help people out when private enterprise can't? Am I talking to the Bizzaro-world version of yourself?
Continuing with this theme, as most of you know the government doesn't have any underseas oil platforms. This is mostly due to the fact that unlike many other western nations, we do not have a nationalized oil industry. In fact we not only left all of this in their hands, but by law they are responsible for cleaning up the leak. That's right, legally the US government can't do anything about this. By law the Coast Guard overseas the mess, but the responsible parties actually are, well, responsible for cleaning it up.
Now it is always possible that in a best-case scenario, the government could have taken over and immediately cleaned up the spill. But the problem is, that would have required spending billions of dollars for equipment, training, and expendables. Oddly enough, we've spent billions on terrorist detection and response equipment, but terrorists would never, ever, do anything like damaging offshore oil wells...
Okay, hindsight is always 20/20, but the fact is in order to have everything ready for this sort of disaster, you have to rely on the government to educate, train, equip, warehouse, and transport all of the necessary people and tools. But since you've said the government is incapable of doing this, and "we have to cut the cost of government", well then, this too shows considerable philosophical schizophrenia.
Obama's failed to clean up the region:
For years now, we've been getting blasted with "the federal government isn't capable of understanding local needs", the usual "states' rights'" claptrap that always gets spun. Well then, Bobby Jindal, this is your cleanup! This is your time to shine, Bobby! Go out there, and show the world just how competent you are- show everybody how your philosophy of self-reliance, local know-how and decentralized system of law and regulation can win the day.
What did you say Bobby? Did you say you can't do it?
So your entire philosophy of "states' rights'" is based on the assumption that states can only those things that are best performed by paper-pushers. We know better than Washington about what to put in our textbooks, if abortion or gay marriage should be legal, or what color of skin is dark enough for cops to claim you have a busted tail-light, and to hold you responsible and "show me your papers". Are states really better at handling these issues, but not capable of cleaning up their own mess? Kindly tell us (in advance, of course) when the federal government is capable of making critical decisions, and when they aren't.
Now for our last trial, Obama just isn't showing enough concern:
"I feel your pain". Remember that line, remember the Republican response to it? I guess what they really want now, is another President Clinton, which I find a bit odd seeing how they did their best to get rid of him when they last had the chance. Are they really so despairing for that kind of leadership?
The Republicans are always the voice of tough, he-man figures. The Gipper, George W Bush, Ahhnold, Cheney (either one is more than man-enough for the task). But it seems they also want Obama to step away from his remarkable poise and rock-hard steadiness in the face of turmoil and they want to metrosexual him up a bit- they want him to seek his feminine side.
But isn't this counter to Newt's idea of the strong masculine leader ideal?
What we are really seeing here, is a complete and total lack of any philosophical continuity, and a single-minded moral compass which shows that ideals and intellectual foundations are worthless in the face of opportunism and the need to attack your opponent even when there is no logical, factual, philosophical or legal basis for such attack to be made.