Obama: Big Talk, Small Performance on Oil Spill

In that Oval Office speech the other night, President Obama vowed, "We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes."

Really?

Why then has Obama not yet waived the Jones Act, an out-of-touch law from 1920 requiring that goods shipped between U.S. ports be handled only by U.S. crews AND in ships made in the U.S. AND owned by U.S. citizens? It's a union thing, of course, and the President doesn't want to offend those who make up a key part of his election base.

But this is an unprecedented crisis. And as new Congressman from Hawaii, Charles Djou, insists, a temporary waiver to this old law is a necessity in cleaning up this awful mess.

As John Fund relates in this Wall Street Journal article,

The Houston Chronicle reports that several countries offered to send sophisticated equipment immediately after the spill but were turned down. The Dutch government offered ships fitted with oil-skimming booms three days after the leak began. Geert Visser, the consul general for the Netherlands in Houston, said the answer from the Obama administration was "Thanks, but no thanks."

Later, the administration relented, allowing U.S. ships to be outfitted with Dutch skimming booms that can remove 20,000 tons of oil and sludge a day. "At that rate, how much more oil could have been removed from the Gulf during the past month?" asks the Chronicle. The paper notes that some offers of help from other countries still haven't been accepted.

And, another very important thing, if the President wants to really get something done about the restoration of the Gulf, wouldn't you think he'd put a guy in charge who was more than a part-timer?

I ask because that's exactly what Obama did the other night. He put former governor of Mississippi Ray Mabus in charge of creating "a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan as soon as possible."

That's one huge job. It will call for a lot of discussion, research, coordination of actions by a gang of different groups at different levels, reporting back to the White House, dealing with the recovery as it effects the states, counties and towns, the businesses and environmental groups...I repeat, this is one huge job!

But Ray Mabus cannot give it his full attention because, remember, he does have another gig. He's still the Secretary of the Navy, for crying out loud!

But neither Obama or Mabus are troubled about the situation. Press secretary Robert Gibbs assures us, “The president talked to the governor about this, and they both agreed that he had the ability to do both."

Ridiculous.

Remember when George W. Bush went to Donald Powell and asked him to take charge of the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina? Powell had another job too. He was head of the FDIC. But both men knew what this new task required. Powell immediately resigned and dedicated himself full time to the recovery.

But even though the BP oil disaster is many times more severe, affects much more U.S. territory, and creates havoc for millions more American citizens than Katrina, the President is confident Ray Maybus can handle it...while still serving as the Secretary of the Navy.

After all, how hard can it be? He's got a few evenings free and there's always the weekends. He can probably even squeeze in a few calls over lunch. He is, after all, a very resourceful guy. (Remember how we won custody of his daughters from his first marriage, by bringing into divorce court the tapes of secretly recorded conversations between he, his wife and a priest?)

Yes, the President has confidence that Maybus will be up to the task even though he can only devote so much time to it.

Wow. Obama's blindness to, if nothing else, the appearance of this appointment is truly remarkable. He pledges to us that "We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes" and then, for dealing with the long-term restoration plan, the President puts in a part-time guy?

For two months after this dreadful catastrophe began, Barack Obama dillied and dallied -- playing golf, playing basketball, partying with musical celebrities, digging in the sand for a Gulf beach photo op.

Lord help us, the Chief Executive is dillying and dallying still.

Free Speech Gets a Reprieve; Pelosi Pulls "Disclose Act" For Now

It's a piece of good news.

The support for the Democrats far-left effort to increase the burdens on free speech (H.R. 5175, called the DISCLOSE Act) fell apart in recent days despite the bizarre efforts of Nancy Pelosi to exempt certain organizations from the law's effects.

Pelosi was willing to let the AARP and the Humane Society go on as usual with running TV ads or sending out mass mailings in the final months of an election without requiring them to disclose their top donors. Under pressure from certain Congressmen in the South and West, the Speaker was forced to even exempt the National Rifle Association. But the law would throw these burdens on pro-life groups and other issue-oriented organizations.

Unbelievable. Do the words "unfairness," "discrimination," or "selective persecution" mean nothing to Democrat leaders?

Apparently not. But they do mean something to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who opposed this outrageous legislation. And to the National Federation of Independent Business, National Right to Life and hundreds of other groups who exist to give voice to their members' interests. And they meant something even to the Washington Post whose Cleta Mitchell penned yesterday,

The cynical decision this week by House Democrats to exempt the National Rifle Association from the latest campaign finance regulatory scheme is itself a public disclosure. It reveals the true purpose of the perversely named Disclose Act (H.R. 5175): namely, to silence congressional critics in the 2010 elections.

The NRA "carve-out" reaffirms the wisdom of the First Amendment's precise language: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech."

Congress can't help itself. Since 1798, with the Alien and Sedition Acts, incumbent politicians have yearned for legal duct tape for their opponents' mouths. The Disclose Act is a doozy of a muzzle.

With such coverage -- and with Congressmen getting an earful from back home about this obviously unjust bill -- the support for it crumbled. By early this week, even the Black Caucus wanted it pulled.

Pelosi had no choice.

Not that the bill is quite dead. She is promising to bring it back, possibly as early as next week, but the "disclosure" of the horrendous (and starkly unconstitutional) intentions of the DISCLOSE Act make its passage doubtful.

For now.

Maryland County Governments Are Puppets for Abortion Agencies

Baltimore and Montgomery counties in Maryland have passed laws forcing crisis pregnancy centers to post signs announcing that they do not provide abortions, that they don’t have licensed medical personnel on staff, and that the county health department recommends they seek a licensed health care provider elsewhere. Failure to post the sign gets you a $500 fine.

NARAL and Planned Parenthood are the groups behind these laws. NARAL describes the new laws as part of a new, nationwide strategy to take customers away from crisis pregnancy centers and funnel them to abortion clinics. Step one is to publish phony “studies” about how pregnancy care centers allegedly “mislead” women. The studies are, of course, conducted by NARAL. Step two: Join forces with pro-abortion lawmakers to pass laws that attack crisis pregnancy centers.

Read more about this outrageous partnership of local governments with abortion agencies in this Mark Earley BreakPoint commentary.

Team Obama Out of Sync, Irresponsible, Breaking Promises

Perhaps before you watch this Fox News clip featuring Arizona's Governor speaking about the broken promises of Barack Obama, you should refresh your memory of just how broken are U.S. policies regarding illegal immigration by watching this clip from yesterday.



(Thanks for the tip, Helen.)

After Two Months, Obama Is Still Clueless

Peggy Noonan makes several penetrating points about the public's increasing distrust of Barack Obama in her Wall Street Journal review of his Tuesday night speech. Here's an excerpt:

...No reason to join the pile on, but some small points. Two growing weaknesses showed up in small phrases. The president said he had consulted among others "experts in academia" on what to do about the calamity. This while noting, again, that his energy secretary has a Nobel Prize. There is a growing meme that Mr. Obama is too impressed by credentialism, by the meritocracy, by those who hold forth in the faculty lounge, and too strongly identifies with them. He should be more impressed by those with real-world experience. It was the "small people" in the shrimp boats who laid the boom.

And when speaking of why proper precautions and safety measures were not in place, the president sternly declared, "I want to know why." But two months in he should know. And he should be telling us. Such empty sternness is . . . empty.

Throughout the speech the president gestured showily, distractingly, with his hands. Politicians do this now because they're told by media specialists that it helps them look natural. They don't look natural, they look like Ann Bancroft gesticulating to Patty Duke in "The Miracle Worker."

The president could move his hands because he was not holding a hard copy of his speech. Normally presidents have had a printed copy of the speech in their hands or on the desk, in case the teleprompter freezes or fails. Mr. Obama's desk was shiny and empty. A White House aide says the director of Oval Office operations had a hard copy just off camera, and was following along as the president spoke so that if the prompter broke he'd be able to give it to the president at the spot he left off.

But that would look a little startling, an arm suddenly darting into the frame to hand the president a script. And the pages could fall. If one were in the mood for a cheap metaphor one would say this is an example of the White House's tendency not to anticipate trouble...

Barack Obama: Big Dreams of Big Government

In the post above, I urged you to read Peggy Noonan's insightful review of President Obama's lackluster speech from the Oval Office. You should.

But here's one that might be even better.

It's from Charles Krauthammer. And it's very good.

Pedestrian is beneath Obama. Mr. Fix-It he is not. He is world-historical, the visionary, come to make the oceans recede and the planet heal.

How? By creating a glorious, new, clean green economy. And how exactly to do that? From Washington, by presidential command and with tens of billions of dollars thrown around. With the liberal (and professorial) conceit that scientific breakthroughs can be legislated into existence, Obama proposes to give us a new industrial economy...

Obama is dreamer in chief: He wants to take us to this green future "even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet precisely know how we're going to get there." Here's the offer: Tax carbon, spend trillions and put government in control of the energy economy -- and he will take you he knows not where, by way of a road he knows not which.

That's why Tuesday's speech was received with such consternation. It was so untethered from reality. The gulf is gushing, and the president is talking mystery roads to unknown destinations. That passes for vision, and vision is Obama's thing. It sure beats cleaning up beaches.

Today's Posts

Chavez Trumps Up Charges to Cover Up Corruption

We're Outta' Here (Humanity Soon To Be Extinct)

Homosexuality: Once Abomination, Now Trendy

Americans, Keep Out. This Part of America Reserved for Illegal Aliens.

Is Vladimir Putin In Charge of American Diplomacy?

Obama, Late to Arrive to the Crisis, Still Wants to Exploit It

Your Wednesday Tea Break (A Day Late) Rain Songs

Chavez Trumps Up Charges to Cover Up Corruption

First, Hugo Chavez forced television station RCTV off the air. It was reporting too many things that put Chavez in a bad light. You know, niggling stuff like corruption, inefficiency, tyranny, disappearing dissidents. That left only Globovision among the media outlets that dared tell even a bit of the truth about conditions in Venezuela.

But dictator Chavez is now taking care of that too. The majority owner of Globovision, Guillermo Zuloaga, was forced to flee the country after criminal charges were filed against him for...get this...having too many automobiles.

Excuse me, Senor Chavez, but Zuloaga owns car dealerships. Having a lot of cars is his business.

It is, of course, just another set up to get a political enemy in prison where he can be silenced...perhaps forever.

The reason for cracking the whip on Globovision right now stems from the station's recent reports on yet another Chavez scandal. This one involved the discovery of more than 2,300 shipping containers holding expired or decomposing food in government storage. Former station director Alberto Ravell said, "It's the only channel that reports about the containers of rotten food. It's the only channel that talks about the corruption."

Another major shareholder of Globovision, Nelson Mezerhane, was out of the country when the latest charges were filed against his colleague. And it turns out that Mezerhane himself is under the thumb of Chavez. In his case, the accusations concern "financial problems" with the bank he operates.

Mezerhane told CNN he would not return to Venezuela for now.

Good move.

For you don't have to be guilty of anything at all to be treated as guilty by crooked politicians. Indeed, when those politicians are as crooked, conniving and cowardly as Hugo Chavez or the Castro brothers, being innocent is even more dangerous.

We're Outta' Here (Humanity Soon To Be Extinct)

We humans are about to be wiped out in a few decades. The grandchildren of many of us will not live to old age.

Hear it from Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University and the man who helped eradicate smallpox.

"Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years," he told The Australian this week.

"It's an irreversible situation." Blame global warming.

But here's the odd thing. Just three paragraphs into this report announcing the - Oh My God! - end of the world, the reporter and Fenner were off talking about rabbits, Fenner's writing habits, his bookshelves, his student days, his war service and the weight of the book he wrote on smallpox...

Strange. It's like we privately agree that when these scientists say the end of the world is nigh, they don't mean it, not literally, but are just scaring us for our own good. Or that they do mean it, but are frankly batty.

After all, it's not as if even Dark Greens have resolved never to breed, to thus spare their child the horror of spending their shortened life in terror at the doom to come.

Yet we're still meant to treat everything else these scientists say as the gospel truth. As in: sure, they're way out there about the end of human life, but on the small stuff they are bang on...

Read the rest of Andrew Bolt's insightful (and humorous) column here.

Homosexuality: Once Abomination, Now Trendy

According to a new survey by the Gallup organization, for the first time a majority of Americans—53 percent—believe that gay and lesbian relationships are morally acceptable. Only 43 percent of Americans call these relationships morally wrong...

Could it be that, if your perception of the world is shaped by pop culture, you expect a lot of people to be gay? Could it be that after years of being told by elite media, like the Times, that being gay is “no big deal,” people treat the news that someone is gay as “no big deal”?

The elite molders of opinion have done their job well. We live in a world where moral qualms about homosexuality are regarded as bigotry. Today it requires more courage, as well as strength, to swim against the cultural tide and express any reservation about homosexual relationships.

But swim we must. What is true has never been a question to be decided by polls or popular opinion. Truth isn’t “democratic”—it’s something that God has written into the very fabric of nature.

Of course, that idea is even less popular than our beliefs about same-sex relationships. We in the West have elevated autonomy, which literally means “self law” into our highest value. Now listen to me folks, this is going to be a wake-up call. The tide has turned against Christian in the culture because we haven't been doing our job in the church. Culture matters. Politics follows culture. That's why we've got to start making a better case.

(Chuck Colson, "Bathing in the Rubicon," BreakPoint commentary.)

Americans, Keep Out. This Part of America Reserved for Illegal Aliens.

From the "You've Got to Be Kidding Me! Please Say You're Kidding Me!" Department comes this report about portions of Arizona (NORTH of Tuscon, for crying out loud) being closed to Americans because it's controlled by illegal immigrants and Mexican drug lords!



Brutally Honest comments,

When are we as Americans going to stand up and demand that something be done about our borders? This problem isn't just on the border now folks, these heathen criminals are now eighty miles deep inside our country, operating with impunity and our federal government absolutely refuses to intercede or interfere. The local authorities have witnessed them operating as paramilitary units with automatic weapons and the local authorities have begged for federal troops to be sent in to protect our borders. All of which has fallen on deaf ears.

Yes friends, we have now literally ceded an eighty mile deep, three county swath of American sovereign soil to Mexico and their armed terrorist drug cartels. And this nation and it's federal government and it's president have done nothing and are continuing to do nothing about it!

Pass the word.

(Hat tip: Blogs Lucianne Loves.)

Is Vladimir Putin In Charge of American Diplomacy?

Bill Gertz at the Washington Times reports on another Team Obama move (a secret move, of course) to weaken America's defenses. In this case, the administration is giving in yet again to Russia, agreeing to their demands that the U.S. curtail its missile defenses before any other arms control talks be conducted.

Good grief.

President Obama is not only hell bent on ruining the U.S. from the inside, he's also rolling over for every thug on the planet.

Obama, Late to Arrive to the Crisis, Still Wants to Exploit It

Here's two quick video clips that definitely need to be passed around. Use your Facebook page or even the simple process of e-mailing this post to your friends by using the little envelope at the end of this post. The first comes from the Republican National Committee and the second was created by the Senate Republican Communications Center. Both clips are really effective.

Your Wednesday Tea Break (A Day Late) Rain Songs

Last week I put on my Facebook page a Top Ten of my favorite "rain songs." Now, to try and revive the Tea Break feature that has been rather inconsistent this spring, I offer up video clips of the top three. They are #3) "Early Mornin' Rain" by Peter, Paul and Mary; #2) "Smoky Mountain Rain" by Ronnie Milsap and #1) "Rainy Night in Georgia" by Brook Benton. So, brew up and take a few minutes to listen in.

Today's Posts

Charlie Daniels on "Personal Responsibility"

Planned Parenthood Is Getting Millions Of Your Tax Dollars

Will the Gulf Oil Spill Never Stop?

Fugitive Killer Caught by a Grandson's Quest for Justice

Obama Wastes His Oval Office Speech

Charlie Daniels on "Personal Responsibility"

I recently heard about a woman who Googled a map on her cell phone and was following it, walking down a road when she was hit by a car, which probably means that she was paying more attention to her cell phone than she was to the oncoming traffic.

The upshot of the whole thing was that she wanted to sue Google for not informing her on the map she was reading that there were no sidewalks on the road.

Has the human race fallen so far that we can't even take the responsibility for what our eyes see and practice a little situational awareness? If you're on a road with no sidewalks and don't have the good sense to stay out of the way of traffic you shouldn't even come out of your house.

The point I'm making is that there is a pervasive and growing perception in this country that everything that happens to us is somebody else's fault...

There are enough things in this life over which we have no control. We can't make it rain on thirsty crops, turn the outside temperature up or down or otherwise do anything about it occasionally raining on our parade, but we can dress accordingly.

If you can't get what you want, take what you can get and make what you want out of it. If life hands you a rough piece of wood, sand off the splinters and get on with the building. If you pick up an out of tune instrument, tune it and get on with the music. Lemons to lemonade. Adversity to opportunity.

It's easy to blame all your shortcomings on somebody else but if you want to identify the culprit who is responsible for the lion's share of your problems look in the mirror.

Take responsibility for your own actions; don't fall into the habit of blaming everything on somebody else.

Are you listening President Obama?...

Read the rest of Charlie Daniels' essay "Personal Responsibility," the latest from the always-terrific Soapbox feature at his website.

Planned Parenthood Is Getting Millions Of Your Tax Dollars

Okay, let's run by a few very important facts:

1) Planned Parenthood kills preborn babies for profit. Hundreds of thousands of babies. And millions in profits. They are the largest abortion providing business in the world.

2) Planned Parenthood is the most aggressive promoter of abortion rights in the U.S. and abroad. It's influence in Congress, the United Nations, in state governments, in social service agencies, and among government educators is huge.

3) Planned Parenthood promotes (and enables) sexual promiscuity, even among very young teenagers.

4) Planned Parenthood promotes sexual perversion and does so with obscene and blasphemous materials.

5) Planned Parenthood holds firm to the racism and elitism of its eugenics founders.

6) Planned Parenthood has been caught on many occasions in criminal cover-ups of statutory rape.

7) Planned Parenthood operates many unsafe, unsanitary abortion clinics. It has had several abortionists who have killed adult women through botched abortion. It dispenses very dangerous abortifacient drugs in an unprofessional manner. It sells "at home abortion kits." It works continually against parental rights and control. It works continually against any and all limitations on abortion.

And, oh yeah...Number 8) Planned Parenthood makes about $100,000,000 every year FROM YOUR TAX DOLLARS!

Here, from LifeNews.com, are the details from the latest government report.

A new Government Accountability Office report shows the Planned Parenthood abortion business reported spending over $650 million in federal funds over a seven year period. That averages to just under $100 million in federal funds each year...

The new 33-page report concerns how much federal money the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is receiving and from what sources -- with most of the funds coming from the Title X family planning program.

Combining the money received from the Health and Human Services department and USAID, the GAO report indicates Planned Parenthood received $657.1 million in federal funds.

The report also shows the pro-abortion group Population Council received $284.3 million in federal funds as well for its international family planning efforts. And the Guttmacher institute, a pro-abortion group that does research on abortion statistics, received $12.7 million. Advocates for Youth, another pro-abortion group, received $8.7 million from the federal government and the International Planned Parenthood Federation received $3.9 million.

Combined, the pro-abortion organizations received more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars from the federal government over the 2002-2009 period GAO analyzed...

So are you ready to finally start writing and calling your Congressmen and Senators about this outrage?

Good!

You can use the search box in the upper left hand corner of this page to "season" your letters with relevant facts. Just type in "Planned Parenthood" and then hit the little magnifying glass. But, to be honest, your letter or call will pack a punch even if you simply say you're sick and tired of seeing government waste your money, let alone use it to enlarge yet further the coffers of such an offensive, immoral and violent business.

Use this page for contact info. And then get busy. Get your friends involved. Pass the word. Write letters to editors. With politicians, use the once-a-month rule and let these folks know how serious you are about their responsibility to start de-funding Planned Parenthood ASAP.

Will the Gulf Oil Spill Never Stop?

I can pretty much guarantee that this piece will be the most alarming thing you have yet read about the catastrophe occurring in the Gulf. It is written by an insider in the industry and, therefore, is detailed and sometimes complex.

It is also speculative -- but with a lot more factual content than anything you've been following in the general press.

And it is also scary to the max.

It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well.

We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not.

The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come. Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Fugitive Killer Caught by a Grandson's Quest for Justice

Hitchhiker Frank Dryman decided he would rather drive himself than take kindness from cafe owner Clarence Pellett who had picked him up on the highway. So Dryman coolly drew out a hidden pistol, ordered Mr. Pellett out of his own car and began shooting him. He emptied the gun in Pellett's back. Then, while Pellett died in agony in the freezing snow, Dryman drove off in triumph.

That was in 1951 in Montana.

Dryman was soon caught and put in prison for the vicious murder. But he received a conditional parole after just 20 years. He skipped out and disappeared, eventually making a new life for himself and eluding authorities for decades.

However, Clarence Pellett's grandson, Dr. Clem Pellett, wasn't resting easy. After growing up and going through his family's history, he learned the things his parents had been too grief-stricken to ever talk about. Clem wanted closure -- and he wanted justice. He hired a private detective to find the escaped killer. And finally, Frank Dryman, alias Victor Houston, is now back in prison.

But Dryman is as unrepentant and self-centered as ever. He admits he's never lost sleep over murdering Clarence Pellett. He never bothers to think of it, let alone feel remorse for his brutal crime. "To be honest, I didn't even remember the victim's name."

And the criminal even denies the right of Clem Pellett to seek justice. "I can't blame him for what he did. But I think it was so wrong he spent so much money getting me here. I feel it is unfair."

Unfair, he says? This from a murderer who already cheated the hangman by becoming a celebrity in the 50s for those campaigning against the death penalty? This from a murderer who screamed at his original sentencing that he would escape and gun down the judge, the members of the jury and even people in the courtroom audience? This from a murderer who received an extremely lenient sentence and yet who still couldn't be bothered by the conditions of his parole?

Unfair?

Saddest of all in reading this account is knowing that these sentiments of a vain and violent murderer are all too close to the ethos of the Entitlement Society which now dominates our politics. Justice, morality, individual responsibility -- they are all overwhelmed by false compassion, irresponsibility, victimization, blame and selfishness.

Therefore I'd like to go on record as applauding the efforts of Clem Pellett to track down his grandfather's killer and bring him back to prison. It is an act that brings some measure of solace to his family, I'm sure.

But it also brings some measure of sanity to the culture at large.

Obama Wastes His Oval Office Speech

Disappointing -- Dull -- Pedantic -- Unspecific -- Patently false -- Egotistical -- Listless -- Misleading -- Smug -- Wandering -- Politics over practicality -- Petulant -- Self-serving -- Boring -- Manipulative -- Off target.

These are a few of the words describing Barack Obama's prime-time address to the nation last night -- that much ballyhooed (though long time coming) speech on the BP oil spill crisis. With his administration under fire for being disengaged from the disaster, with his public approval dropping to yet new lows, and with the increasing revelations of just how catastrophic this thing is getting, the President desperately needed to be honest, forthright, inspirational and full of practical steps about stopping the escaping oil and cleaning up the Gulf.

He failed miserably on all counts.

Here are just a few notable reactions, beginning with the loony leftists Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman and Keith Olberman.



* At the Washington Post, Michael Gerson writes, "The main impression left by President Obama’s address on the oil spill is the chasm between the ambition of its commitments and the thinness of its policies...

The setting of the Oval Office creates an expectation of decisive executive action. It recalls memories of President Dwight Eisenhower dispatching federal troops to Little Rock or President John F. Kennedy announcing the naval "quarantine" of Cuba. This speech will not be confused with those precedents. Obama urges others to take action, kibitzes with corporate executives, shifts some government personnel and signals the start of a review process. A crisis is met with a study. The action verbs in this speech have somehow gone missing. It is all rather limp and weak.

For this I would not blame the speechwriters, who must ultimately work with the policy they are given. But someone at the White House is responsible for putting Obama in a dramatic setting with little worth saying. Whoever they are, they have not done the president, or the country, much service."

* Newsweek, who once appeared as if it were on the Obama payroll, titled its report, "Obama's Curiously Flat Gulf Speech."

* Over at Big Hollywood, Jeff Dunetz writes, "Putting aside for a second the fact that this speech was given about 50 days late, last night’s oval office speech proved that the President is not ready to be honest with the American people. For the first 30 days of this crisis, President Obama was ignoring the fact that the crisis existed, and now when he uses the oval office to give the people confidence that he is on top of the problem he spends more time trying to sell cap and trade than discussing capping the well. Essentially, he is still ignoring the crisis..."

* "The President's Oil Reserves Lie." In this American Thinker article, Chad Stafko points out a few of the wild untruths Obama used Tuesday night in trying to use the crisis to sell his energy bill.

* At the New York Post, Michael Goodwin says, "Once again, President Obama channels Oscar Wilde, who famously said the only thing he couldn't resist was temptation. So it is with Obama's attempt to turn the Gulf oil debacle into a reason why America should embrace his cap-and-tax energy policy. No matter the crisis, Obama can't resist the temptation to exploit it in his quest to grow the government.

* A. J. Strata at the Strata-Sphere: "The president’s speech was a pathetic dud. The take away line – contrary to the pundits – was his admission that “we don’t know how to get there”. Brit Hume said it well last night, cleaning up the Gulf is too small for this egomaniac. This president wants to wean the world off oil!!!

Talk about your Walter Mitty moment. The idea we should tax energy AND cut off 30% of our oil supply with a 6 month embargo of off shore drilling (which will grow into a many year drought as oil rigs move to other nations) is stupendously reckless. Want a double dip recession? We just got one...."

* Hardy liberal Roger Simon of Politico wasn't satisfied either, " Maybe the location was wrong. Maybe using the Oval Office - and it was the first time the president has used it for a speech - upped the ante too much. Maybe we expected too much. Like details."

* Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief of CNS News titles his report with a question, "Obama’s Speech Raises Question: Where Does He Get the Authority to ‘Inform’ a Private Company That It Must Surrender Its Money?"

* Iain Murray dropped this in over at NRO's The Corner -- "That, in a nutshell, was the point of the speech. For all the talk about an independent third party adjudicating compensation claims (we have one of those, it's called the Court) and regulating companies (by making them even more dependent on government for favors), the oil spill is simply an excuse to kick-start a stalled policy. He admitted that no one knows how to replace oil, but his chosen policy vehicle is more expensive energy. That's really going to help the victims of the second man-made disaster, the people put out of work by his drilling ban. This is the day that President Obama opened his second front in his war on the middle class. He'd already succeeded in his plan to raise their health-care costs. Now he's going to raise their energy costs, which will be far more dangerous, because energy costs affect everything else — food costs, household goods costs and, yes, health care costs too. This amounts to a sacrifice to angry gods, as Bob Nelson pointed out last week. It's the people who are going to get really angry, though.

But here's the real kicker. Tomorrow he's going to meet with the people who stand to benefit most from raised energy prices — BP, whose policy goal this idea has been for years. You couldn't make it up."

* Calvin Woodward comments for the AP, "Obama aimed high in his prime-time Oval Office address Tuesday night — perhaps higher than the facts support and history teaches — as he vowed to restore livelihoods and nature from the still-unfolding calamity in the Gulf of Mexico." And then he goes on to do a fact check of Obama's statements and finds them, at best, ethereal.

* And finally, here from the Los Angeles Times is Andrew Malcolm, "...But watching the president and hearing him was a little creepy; that early portion of the address was robotic, lacked real energy, enthusiasm. And worst of all specifics. He was virtually detail-less. After almost two months of waiting through continuously contradictory reports, an anxious American public wanted to know, HOW are you going to accomplish all this?...

Trust me, the president said, tomorrow I'm going to give those BP execs what-for. As CBS' Mark Knoller noted on his Twitter account, the president has allotted exactly 20 whole minutes this morning -- 1,200 fleeting seconds -- to his first-ever conversation with the corporation responsible for the disaster...

Instead, Obama was like a Harvard-trained nurse talking vacation to a new patient bleeding all over the ER floor. Hello, could we please stop the blood flow here before we discuss the long-term recovery?

Obama’s delivery did not really come alive until the end when the ex-community organizer got into his favorite Big Picture stuff. Memo to American Homeowners: Do not call Obama over to fix your leaking roof – or pipe. Have him design a new house, no, better yet an entire neighborhood or city from scratch.

Following the advice of his chief of staff, Rahm "I Got a Rent-Free Apartment from a BP Adviser" Emanuel, Obama is determined to leave no crisis unused. When he got into the decades-long fossil fuel addiction rehab stuff, his eyes shone. His delivery punched up.

Now, that is an issue that requires greatness. Another galactic reform out of Hyde Park. It sounds swell unless mega-trillion-dollar federal deficits are on your mind, which voter polls now show ranks with terrorism as Americans' top fears..."