President Obama's tin ear about BP

Well, this is just dumb:

President Barack Obama said Friday that some members of Congress should share the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

In an exclusive one-on-one interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

Dumb. Transparently dumb. I know you're taking a lot of heat right now, but blaming Congress for its hypothetical reaction to your hypothetical proposal is ... dumb. You might be right about the hypotheticals, but here's the problem: You never actually took any such proposal to Congress.

Let's remember: I'm someone who wants to support you!

Maybe because of that, I suspect that a lot of the blame headed your way for not fixing the spill is unfair. But this effort to spread the blame stretches credulity. It's so inartful, in fact, that all it really does is embarrass you. Start doing better, Mr. President.

Comments

Notorious Ph.D. said…
Credulity further stretched by his vocal willingness to expand offshore drilling only a few short months before the disaster.
June 11, 2010 at 9:48 PM
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