From Day One - Granite Grok

From Day One

"Let me be clear” may be giving way to “From Day one.”  “From Day One” is the new backstop in the absence of physical evidence.  "From day one," the Obama administration was working behind the scenes on a response to the BP oil rig explosion.  You’re damn right they were.

Day one began with the same meeting they have every time something happens; how can we blame Bush or Republicans, and if not them who?  No "national" response is possible until that narrative has been worked out, and a plan is in place to turn whatever it is into some political advantage, unless it fits an existing grievance narrative already in place like "racist!"   The Narrative seeps out, the media and the administration regurgitate it, add spin and stir. 

And if you look over the short list of possibilities, Fort Hood, The Panty Bomber, Bonus announcements, Voter intimidation case involving Black Panthers, Tea Party protesters, Illegal immigrants rioting, things said by republicans, things said by democrats, scandals involving democrats, body counts, comments about clean black men, the difference in response time and the actions taken—or not–reveal their actual priorities.  It’s not jobs or growth or cleaning up corruption or clean energy.  It’s all politics, power and payback, all the time.

AIG bonuses—the ink isn’t even dry and the entire left side of the congress along with the White house is barfing class warfare rhetoric from every media orifice they can find about how they need to reign in big "whatever," new legislation already in hand.  An al Qaida trained terrorist tries to blow up a plane and is thwarted by passengers….need a week before we can even comment.

Of course we know why they need more time.  We’ve seen what happens when they are forced to comment on something before the ritual three day minimum.  They put their collectivist feet in their collective mouths.  They really have no clue what they are doing, especially when someone else craps on America before they can and they have no narrative in place.

But we know they can respond with speed when its about false outrage or grievance mongering. Congress can’t get details about the Fort Hood shooter because of White House obstruction and the media won;t touch it, but a Tea party guy spits when he talks and he’s a racist, every one near him is a racist, in fact the whole damn country is nothing but a bunch of gay bashing, hate filled, anti-government racists–30 seconds after it happens.  But for everything else–actual leadership is beyond them.  They need to have a meeting or form a committee to see how they ‘feel’ about it.

Which brings us to the BP oil rig.  ‘From Day One’ the Obama administration…has been trying to find someone to blame.  Unfortunately for them, BP and that very rig is reported to have passed three separate federal safety inspections since the beginning of 2009 and was in the running for a safety award to be given out this week.  (Not any more)   And it’s just too bad that BP is not an American company that Obama can just take over in the interest of the country.  (Was it Maxine Waters who let loose the truth–that democrats wanted to socialise the oil industry?  I think it was.)  And look, there are no Republicans to blame.  So all we have is Obama, Lisa Jackson, at EPA, and a week of doing nothing.  Wait.  There were Earth Day fesitivals to attend while the oil was polluting the sacred earth mothers lipid pools of life.  Dopes.

It is probably worth noting that the rig (and a company) with the exemplary safety record, blew as if in tribute to Earth Day just weeks after Obama’s “increase offshore oil production” rhetoric.   (Was it enviro-terrorism?) It’s also odd that the problem was left to develop until it was nearly unsolvable and destined to cause significant damage to the local coastline.  And it not surprising that more than a week into the spill–with no sign of action from EPA, your exhaled breath is a pollutant, we want to control your thermostat, we’ll tell you what kind of energy you’ll use and like it, enviro-fascist Lisa Jackson–that we are now confronted with a PR broadside on what they have actually been doing since day one.  You’d think they’d just given themselves a massive bonuses or something. 

But we know what they’vebeen doing.  Opening doors to empty rooms and dancing the night away.  When they ran out of doors a week later (as the Sierra Club and the NYT started to get grumpy about the  lack of action) they had no one else left to blame but BP which they are now doing in force.  And BP is certainly culpable, though to what extent we may not know for some time–which works well for Obama.  But does that even matter?  The government’s obligation to protect its citizens and the homeland is not based on who is responsible for the catastrophe.  It is a responsibility of the offices and agencies, more than adequately funded by taxpayer dollars, to act in a purposeful fashion with all available speed  It’s not just another national exercise in CYA for Obama and the democrats based on meeting minutes and political calculus.  But that’s all they’ve got.

From day one the democrats under Obama have been insisting that everything works better when its planned from Washington DC, but every time they have an opportunity to prove it, they screw it up.  And it’s not simply because Obama can’t lead, or that the people he’s chosen to surround himself with are all vapid power hungry posers and cronies who want to bask in the now diminishing limelight of celebrity that surrounded the black man president, it’s that central planning never worked, and it never will.  Obama could be pink and it still wouldn’t work.

But don’t worry.  They have scheduled a meeting about that and I’m sure we’ll have their solution in about a week or so.  And when they make the announcement and Obama will be clear.  Since day one he’s had a laser like focus on jobs.  And he’s got a new jobs program that will get regular American familes back to work–scrubbing rocks and sea birds along hundreds of miles of Gulf Coast. 

Cross Posted at NH Insider

>