Is The Gulf Oil Spill Barack Obama's Katrina?

Some are saying that Obama's slow reaction to the gulf oil spill is a travesty. Is it, or is it simply because it isn't his fault?

No one could capably argue George Bush cause the Katrina hurricane that hit New Orleans, but he was blamed for his response - too little, too slow, and mismanaged.

Obama is looking at serious fallout if he fails to take swift and clear action. He is already looking like a politics as usual guy, having tried to buy out Joe Sestak's run for the Senate by offering him a job if he stepped out and let the eventual loser Arlen Specter win the primary. Sestak turned him down. Republicans are naturally overracting to a perfectly legal offer, yet it hardly is helping Obama look like more than the last guy.

Bad week to be Obama.

Another thought on this:

Two crises: Where's Obama?
If the White House doesn't step up soon on both the gulf oil spill and Arizona's anti-immigrant law, it risks economic woes in the gulf and loss of control of the immigration issue.

Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City

Strange Glee in the White House With Tea Party Victory

Strange glee. The Tea Party crowd won an election in Kentucky. Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son won a primary. It made national news. Why are the Democrats happy?

Meanwhile, our dear President Barack Obama suffers from an all-time low approval rating (42%). While he has pushed the barely supported health care bill forward, nothing has changed. Life in 2010 is pretty much the same as the day before he entered office. He has another year to fix this, but that will come quickly. He cannot delay.

Are the Obama people really concerned Paul's modest victory represents something? Maybe not, but with the gust of wind which blew him into office now a mere breeze, they need to gather up the troops. Since part of the campaign for 2008 was reactionary, they want to grab the antiTea Party movement who do not realize one election in Kentucky is just that.

The Tea Party victory gives the Democrats something to threaten lapsed followers with. "Look, if you don't start lapping at out heels, Sarah Pail will be president. and you know she is not a feminist."

In other words, the antiTea Party movement's energy and fervor needs to be manipulated back into the Obama camp, otherwise the very deft and bright Hillary Clinton will use her increasing influence to steal away the 2012 election. She's already raising interest in her work in China, and her tough talk about Korea.

Obama's Problem Du Jour: Pakistan Muslim Terrorists

It might seem like President Barack Obama's current problem is his nomination of Elena Kagan, as she is being decried by conservatives. The reality both Obama's liberal tendencies, his supporters' patent agreement with his decisions, and conservatives tendency to dislike anything he does is nothing new. We saw this pre-election, both the liberalism, the swooning, and the opposing blind hate.

His problem of the day, apart from the constant issues of the economy, employment market and the non-stop Middle East war, is Pakistan's Taliban.

We are no longer a George Bush nation. Cowboy George has ridden off into the sunset, albeit out on the rails, but he is gone, and has been gone for something like a year and a half.

According to Reuters,

"Pakistani Taliban militants have warned America that it will soon "burn" while calling for Pakistan's rulers to be overthrown for following "America's agenda".

America's agenda is not Bush's agenda. It is Obama's. He owns this one. This doesn't mean anyone thinks the Taliban felt a warm thrill up their leg for Bush. They hated him. They hated America then.

Apparently, the non-love extends to Indonesia as well, where Islamic militants wanted to kill him.

Politically, a mess, of course, as Obama works hard to build a sense of trust so that he can negotiate with the terrorists.

Bigger than that, though, is America's safety, not to mention his own.

While the cowards among those Islamic terrorists are so convinced that no one in their right mind would accept their beliefs, they do try to proselytize through murder. Billy Graham and free will theology is hardly their MO. Obama is working to get beyond this, but is finding that when a group prone to killing, whose goal is to convert the world by force, is difficult, to say the least. He now knows what Bush knew and could not resolve.

Hopefully, Bush's failure will not be Obama's. Bush did, in general, after 9-11, keep America safe.

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