Obama's Poll Numbers Up Says Newsweek Poll

According to a new Newsweek poll, President Barack Obama's approval rating has jumped by six points, from 48 percent to 54 percent. His disapproval rate has dropped to 40 percent, "the lowest disapproval rating in a NEWSWEEK Poll since February 2010."

These results do not mean that Democrats will win much next week, says the poll article, but some races may be closer than previously thought.

The poll also says that about 24 percent of voters support the Tea Party. That number is high enough to make me uncomfortable about the direction in which this country may be going, tilting toward greater polarization. Nevertheless, the number also indicates the Tea Party is not as strong as some mainstream media outlets make it appear to be. To watch CNN and MSNBC, you'd think the Tea Party is already as powerful as the GOP and that every middle class white person favors the Tea Party's agenda.

Everytime I turn on cable news lately it seems some Tea Party pundit is on defending the movement or some expert is analyzing the Tea Party's influence. And I'm so sick of hearing about Christine O'Donnell, I'm tempted to turn off the TV for the next two weeks.

Finally MSM Examines Jindal's Oil Crisis Game Playing

At last some folks in the mainstream media seem willing to question how Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is handling response to the oil spill. Finally, a major news outlet is not so impressed by Jindal's hot-faced "passion" on camera that it won't scrutinize what he's actually doing or not doing. For instance, Jindal is not using all the National Guards troops the federal government has approved him to use to fight the oil spill and keep oil from reaching the wetlands.

I've been challenging the MSM's handling of Jindal with kid gloves for a while now. And oh, look! Now that he's being challenged about why he hasn't fully deployed the National Guard, Jindal is "pointing fingers," says CBS:

"Actually we asked the White House to approve the initial 6,000," Jindal said. "What they came back and said is the Coast Guard and BP had to authorize individual tasks."

But Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the government's response to the spill, said Jindal is just flat wrong.

"There is nothing standing in the governor's way from utilizing more National Guard troops," Allen said.

When Gen. Colin Powell appeared in a TV interview weeks back and was asked why didn't President Barack Obama use the military, I wrote a post and made sure to include video about the National Guard being activated. With so many people asking why haven't we deployed the military, you'd think National Guard soldiers are nothing. I addressed that notion responding to a commenter.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

CBS reports that despite his frequent on-camera lamentations that Obama is not providing the labor needed to fight the spill, Jindal has chosen not to deploy all the National Guard troops that he's been given permission to use.

As of today, the federal government has authorized a total of 17,500 National Guard troops across four Gulf states, all to be paid for by BP.

But CBS News has learned that in addition to Louisiana's 1,053 troops of 6,000, Alabama has deployed 432 troops of 3,000 available. Even fewer have been deployed in Florida - 97 troops out of 2,500 - and Mississippi - 58 troops out of 6,000.

Those figures prompted President Obama to weigh in.

"I urge the governors in the affected states to activate these troops as soon as possible," Mr. Obama said.

The governors of the states mentioned may fear a National Guard presence will keep tourists away, according to the CBS story, but the reporter also suggests politics may be at play.

You're damned skippy politics are at play! The governors of all those Gulf Coast states mentioned are Republicans, and as has been revealed by "leaked" GOP's emails, Republican strategists want to play this oil spill for every teardrop that may equal a GOP vote.

They want to make Obama look like he's insensitive to the people of the Gulf Coast, like he doesn't really want to clean up the oil. They want it to seem like "Obama's Katrina." (Hear that with a big boom mic and echo chamber.) And as you know, some Republican pundits have said blunty or by code that "Obama has a deep-seated hatred for white people." They started beating that drum long before the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers.

Let's recall Kanye West's infamous charge during the Hurricane Katrina telethon as we see Jindal parading mostly white "angry" oil drill workers for the media and says they can't feed their families due the president's moratorium. It's more subtle than Kaney's outburst, but its still an attempt to further the conservative dog whistle that President Obama hates white people. Republicans and their "tit for tat" mentality, always so middle school.

Obama Accepts Resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, Names Petraeus as Replacement

In the fallout of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff's impolitic comments published in a magazine article, President Barack Obama today accepted the general's resignation. He announced his decision from the White House Rose Garden as the media anticipated the general would be fired. The president said:

"... war is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general, or a president. And as difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe that it is the right decision for our national security.

... The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that’s necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan.

Obama announced Gen. David Petraeus will replace McChrystal, pending results of confirmation hearings, which will be Tuesday, reports Stars and Stripes. Gen. Petraeus, who was the head of the United States Central Command, remained silent on McChyrstal's widely-discussed remarks.

McChrystal's statement in response to the president's announcement is available on Scribd:

This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of U.S. and NATO Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I strongly support the President’s strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people. It was out of respect for this commitment -- and a desire to see the mission succeed -- that I tendered my resignation. It has been my privilege and honor to lead our nation’s finest.

The Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings that caused Obama to yank McChrystal from his post in Afghanistan is entitled "The Runaway General." It exploded on the Net and in mainstream media Monday and will be available on newstands June 25. Hastings takes readers behind the scenes with the general's senior aides in the Afghanistan War, and the magazine sums the lengthy piece up:

Stanley McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: those whimps in the White House.

In it one of McChrystal's aides called the general's meeting with Obama early in his presidency after the general was assigned as commander in Afghanistan a "photo op," and he said the president didn't know anything about McChrystal. Other sources, said Hastings, described the general's impression of Obama in an earlier briefing as "'intimidated' by the roomful of military brass."

McChrystal and his staff disrespected Vice President Joe Biden:

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

As the article continues, it's clear disrespect from "Team McChrystal" extends to retired four-star general and veteran of the Cold War Jim Jones. An aide calls him "a 'clown' who remains "stuck in 1985." More insults flow as an aide shares how McChrystal likens Richard Holbrooke, a diplomat and special representative assigned to Afghanistan and Pakistan, "a wounded animal," who is "dangerous" because his job's in jeopardy.

Neither are Senators John McCain and John Kerry spared. Hastings writes, "Team McChrystal likes to talk shit about many of Obama's top people on the diplomatic side," and he says the only person not skewered is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because she said the administration should give McChyrstal whatever he wants.

That's the big red flag waving in this article that marks the chasm between the military and diplomacy camps on what to do about Afghanistan. The greater concern is that this division undermines civilian chain of command and the morale of U.S. troops. Hence, it was at this point in addressing the McChrystal dismissal that the president delivered his strongest statements:

I welcome debate among my team, but I won’t tolerate division. All of us have personal interests; all of us have opinions. Our politics often fuels conflict, but we have to renew our sense of common purpose and meet our responsibilities to one another, and to our troops who are in harm’s way, and to our country.

We need to remember what this is all about. Our nation is at war. We face a very tough fight in Afghanistan. But Americans don’t flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tasks. We persist and we persevere. We will not tolerate a safe haven for terrorists who want to destroy Afghan security from within, and launch attacks against innocent men, women, and children in our country and around the world.

So make no mistake: We have a clear goal. We are going to break the Taliban’s momentum. We are going to build Afghan capacity. We are going to relentlessly apply pressure on al Qaeda and its leadership, strengthening the ability of both Afghanistan and Pakistan to do the same.

That’s the strategy that we agreed to last fall; that is the policy that we are carrying out, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

According to blogs and mainstream media sources, as well as the Rolling Stone article, Obama is fighting this war based on a campaign promise. Furthermore, he's been sucked into using a military strategy he's never wholeheartedly supported, counterinsurgency also called COIN. Counterinsurgency is the strategy Petraeus used in Iraq, and it is the strategy McChrystal championed for Afghanistan. Obama's downfall, say analysts, may be that Afghanistan looks more like his Viet Nam each day.

Speculation on the General's Loose Lips

The Rolling Stone article tells readers that mouthing off and having Obama yank his chain is not new for McChrystal:

Last fall, during the question-and-answer session following a speech he gave in London, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as "shortsighted," saying it would lead to a state of "Chaos-istan." The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. The message to McChrystal seemed clear: Shut the fuck up, and keep a lower profile.

The article also tells us that Obama, on the advice of the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "fired Gen. David McKiernan – then the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan" and then mentions the firing of Gen. Douglass MacArthur who President Harry Truman fired during the Korean War. Truman dismissed MacArthur because the popular general criticized his policy.

Before today's news, an editorial at the L.A. Times said the president should just slap McChrystal's wrist and send him back to Afgahistan because McChrystal is valuable and his remarks were not as bad as MacArthur's comments, says the editorial. But given that the Rolling Stone article itself reveals McChrystal's already had a wrist slapping, what else could Obama do that would not make him look like a weak Commander in Chief?

In an interview with Morning Joe on MSNBC, Eric Bates, executive editor of the Rolling Stone, said that McChrystal knew exactly what he was saying and his staff was saying. The general and his staff knew what was on the record and off, and the magazine honored those boundaries, having received open access to McChrystal and his men, according to Bates.

Hastings kept in touch with the editor, and it sounds like The Rolling Stone knew it was serving up a a hot course for dismissal with the Hasting's piece. The mention of MacArthur in the article itself seems more a foreshadowing of the president accepting McChrystal's resignation today as an astute writer perceived the significance of his scoop instead of simply a historical tidbit. The group discussing the story on Morning Joe speculates that perhaps McChrystal knew he had thrown down the proverbial gauntlet because he was tired and wanted out of an "unwinnable" war.

Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson marveled at McChrystal's naiveté and said:

But, you know, "Rolling Stone" has already made its reputation for practically blowing Goldman Sachs apart in the last year. So, you don't talk to "Rolling Stone" expecting a little bland piece about yourself. This is going to be a very calculated decision on McChrystal's part.

In the segment, however, Bates says he does not think the general and his staff's quips of insubordination that could lead to dismissal were intentional. He says over the course of the show's conversation:

Well, we got a really unprecedented access with him. We spent -- we reported this story over the course of several months. We were with him on a trip in Europe that wound up getting extended because of the volcano in Iceland. So, our reporter was kind of trapped with him for about two weeks in Paris and traveling from Paris to Berlin. They couldn't fly, so they had to take a bus. So, we really spent a lot of time with him ...

I have to say, in the course of this story, I don't think we got the sense that it was intentional, either. I think we got a look behind the curtain. These are men at war, talking amongst themselves in that locker-room way. McChrystal is known for being very, very frank. It's one of the most appealing traits. Whether he used good judgment in saying this kind stuff in front of a reporter is another question.

Last year, following the release of the memo asking for 40,000 troops, McChrystal gave an inteview to CBS 60 Minutes where he spoke frankly about the war. On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough said he thought McChrystal showed poor judgement in some of his answers then as well. He thinks the general wasn't discreet enough about his communication or lack of communication with the president.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Writer's Side Note: The Rolling Stones article refers to Afghanistan as a poor nation. Is it still poor now that America's confirmed its vast mineral deposits?

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Today on Obama Wheel of Fortune: General Stanley McChrystal May Have Resigned, says Time's Joe Klein

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Welcome back to Obama Wheel of Fortune! Here is where we spin to see whether Lady Luck is smiling on President Barack Obama, the first African-American President of the United States of America, or frowning sourly. So far the week doesn't look good for our cool Commander in Chief.

Sources such as the Huffington Post report he blew his stack. He was "furious" when he learned that Gen. Stanley McChrystal described him as unprepared for the Oval Office when they first met and that Obama looked intimidated by all the military men in that first briefing. McChyrstal and his staff gave Rolling Stone an open-access interview for the story entitled "The Runaway General" by Michael Hastings.

The magazine will deliver the issue to stands June 25 and sums up the McChrystal interview this way.

Stanley McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: Those whimps in the White House

The interview reads like a verbal hit list with McChrystal's staff, with no objection from McChrystal, insulting everyone from Obama to Vice President Biden on down, and McChrystal with a few shots of his own.

President Obama subsequently yanked the general's chain, dragging him back to Washington D.C., where his job was said to hang in limbo. Eric Bates, the article's editor, says McChrystal knew what he was saying was on the record, that the Rolling Stone respected the boundaries of on and off-the-record comments. Bates appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe today. So, we have to wonder what was not on the record because what was is pretty damning.

Even McChrystal's supporters have said the interview is grounds for his dismisal, and apparently understanding this the general has already offered an apology and his resignation, according to CNN and Time.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has submitted his resignation, Time magazine's Joe Klein told CNN, citing an unnamed source. CNN is working to confirm Klein's information.

Per CNN, McChrystal calls the interview "a mistake" reflecting poor judgment, and he has fired some of his own staff as a result.

Yes, a military general openly criticizing the Commander in Chief is simply not done. I remember when Colin Powell appeared to disagree with former president George W. Bush based on body language, but he never came out and said Bush was wrong while he was serving that president. There's no official word yet on McChrystal's resignation, whether he really did submit and whether it was accepted.



The Washington Post asks whether the president can afford to lose McChrystal.

But relieving McChrystal of his command on the eve of a major offensive in Kandahar, which White House and Pentagon officials have said is the most critical of the war, would be a major blow to the war effort, said military experts.

We're supposed to be out of Afghanistan by July 2011.

McChrystal-gate isn't the only setback our lanky contestant faces today as a wildcard judge in Louisiana ruled against Obama's temporary drilling moratorium for the Gulf of Mexico. Amid calls from Louisiana business owners screaming foul on the ban and the state's governor Bobby Jindal railing against it beside frustrated oil workers on TV, Judge Martin Feldman took no chance that his oil investments could falter and said Obama's ban was hurting those poor people too darn much.

Finally, rumors rumble through the blogosphere and across the pond that Rahm Emmanuel has had enough of White House softees and will leave his position as Chief of Staff sometime after November elections. This news has spread via an anonymous source speaking to a British newspaper. The British are having an Obama hatefest of late in response to America lashing BP.

Feldman Overturns Obama's Drilling Moratorium

The AP reports and Nola.com and WWL TV repeat that U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman granted a preliminary injunction against the temporary deepwater drilling moratorium the federal government put in place since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and created the nation's worst environmental disaster ever. You may view Judge Feldman's ruling as a PDF here. The White House said it will immediately appeal the judge's ruling.

Per the AP story:

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama believes strongly that drilling at such depths does not make sense and puts the safety of workers "at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."

Local businesses filed the lawsuit against the moratorium, but I am sure Republicans will call today's ruling a victory.

I expected Feldman to rule in favor of the companies. Slabbed says anyone who doubted this outcome should have looked at the judge's oily financial statements, and Mother Jones reports that in 2008, Feldman's had stock in TransOcean.

He has also recently owned stock in offshore drilling or oilfield service providers Halliburton, Prospect Energy, Hercules Offshore, Parker Drilling Co., and ATP Oil & Gas. Feldman was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

And now a word from a BP whistleblower, Tyrone Benton. He survived the fatal explosion of April 20 that killed 11 people. There have been quite a few people stepping forward to say BP doesn't give a damn about safety, however. Neither does Judge Feldman, I suppose.

Welcome to OWOF, Obama Wheel of Fortune: The Oil Spill Crisis of 2010

Not having an actual crystal ball, political analysts told us the health care reform battle would define President Barack Obama's presidency followed by the economy, issues not discussed much lately.

But everyone get out your Ouija Boards. It's becoming clearer each day that it's not health care nor the economy, stupid, it's the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that will shape this president's future. Both Republicans and Democrats will make this oil spill a crucible of 2012 and November 2010. Republicans will say Obama ruined America and didn't act swiftly. Democrats will drive the "If Republicans didn't want us to Drill-Baby-Drill" bus, and then pull out the GOP's dirty, oil-tango laundry. As for Obama, some of his progressive supporters also clamor to push him over a cliff, but they never understood who they voted for anyway.

This Deepwater Horizon spill is a man-made disaster that illustrates the arrogance of corporations that neglect safety, and it is raining misfortune on not only the people of the Gulf but also the first African-American POTUS. So, let's focus on a new game, Obama Wheel of Fortune! Like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, this game is popular. Anyone can play, but average Americans will gain little from doing so.

Today's episode of OWOF begins with the president meeting BP officials at the White House today on the heels of a speech to the nation last night in which he called on God but earned thumbs down from political analysts, reporters, pundits, and some Gulf Coast residents also.

The breaking news from today's meeting says "BP agrees to $20B fund for spill victims." In Obama's speech to the nation last night, he vowed to make BP pay and also said the Gulf oil spill spells end to our oil addiction.

But what about this $20 billion? It's great to hear that figure, although I think the president said $25 billion before the meeting. Nevertheless, can we be assured the wetlands, Gulf Coast environment, and the people affected directly by the oil spill will see that whole figure, touch the money? Fact-checking last night's speech, the AP says:

In assuring Americans that BP won't control the compensation fund for Gulf oil spill recovery, President Barack Obama failed to mention that the government won't control it, either.

That means it's anyone's guess whether the government can, in fact, make BP pay all costs related to the spill.

But here's another kicker. We should be concerned about where that money goes even if the government, especially some local governments, get control. Corruption in the south and other parts of the nation runs rampant, according to this Daily Beast article, "The Most Corrupt States."

I was both happy and surprised that Louisiana wasn't number one. However, it is #19 of 51 locales.

Look for updates later on Obama's BP meeting.

Stephen Colbert Vs. the Eight Religions that Run the World; Obama Calls on God in Oil Crisis

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Prothero
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

I love Stephen Colbert's interviews with authors. How he purposely misunderstands makes me laugh; however, his show is a spoof of Fox's O'Reilly factor, and I think Bill O'Reilly does not misunderstand on purpose. He actually does not understand.

Colbert interviewed Boston University religious scholar Stephen Prothero recently, who is also a CNN contributor, has written the book, God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World.

Pothero asserts that "pretending all religions are the same doesn't serve to understand the world." Furthermore, he tells Colbert that you can't understand cultures influenced by specific religions if you don't understand the religion. Yes! I've said that before myself. If you ignore the Judaeo-Christian influence on America, you're missing a big piece of the political puzzle.

Last night, Queen of Spain, aka Erin Kotecki-Vest, said on Twitter that she was uncomfortable with Obama's god talk in one part of his speech. I understand why she was, but I also understand why Obama did that. While Americans may be less devoted to Christian religion than they once were, there's still a large part of this nation who reverence God as presented in Christianity.

Furthermore, despite an increase in atheism, more people believe in some concept of God or see themselves as "spiritual" than don't. So, if a president is dealing with a crisis of the magnitude of this BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, something he clearly cannot fix simply by issuing a command, then calling on God in public is the smart thing to do in America.

President Obama talked about faith in general in the latter part of his remarks, and then moved on to religious faith. That made sense because people in Louisiana are heavily Roman Catholic, and the rest of the states impacted by this spill in the south are also religious, many of them Southern Baptist. Plus, Obama himself has had to show people he's a Christian, remember.

From his speech:

It's a faith in the future that sustains us as a people. It is that same faith that sustains our neighbors in the Gulf right now.

Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region's fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe. It's called "The Blessing of the Fleet," and today it's a celebration where clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out to sea -- some for weeks at a time.

The ceremony goes on in good times and in bad. It took place after Katrina, and it took place a few weeks ago -- at the beginning of the most difficult season these fishermen have ever faced.

And still, they came and they prayed. For as a priest and former fisherman once said of the tradition, "The blessing is not that God has promised to remove all obstacles and dangers. The blessing is that He is with us always," a blessing that's granted "even in the midst of the storm."

The oil spill is not the last crisis America will face. This nation has known hard times before and we will surely know them again. What sees us through -- what has always seen us through -- is our strength, our resilience, and our unyielding faith that something better awaits us if we summon the courage to reach for it.

Tonight, we pray for that courage. We pray for the people of the Gulf. And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

BTW, here is video of President Barack Obama's speech from last night.



Critics in the media were unimpressed with the president last night, from what I've been hearing. They say they didn't hear enough of a plan. David Gergen, political analyst, said, "Enough is enough! After the latest failure by BP to plug the gaping hole, it is time for President Obama to take full command of this growing national catastrophe. Immediately!"

Jason Linkins asked at Huffington Post, "What was the point?" He says all he saw was sentiment. Jason must have missed my memos that Americans prefer theatrics to substance. Or maybe Jason wanted more theatrics. People don't seem to get that we are screwed on this oil spill. We were from day one. I've said this before.

Naturally Obama heard immediately from Republican opponents as well. They don't want to hear that he will push for more regulation nor do they like his reminders that oil resources are finite and it makes sense to overcome our addiction to fossil fuels. They continue to show they are the party of shortsightedness. I don't think anyone is saying we can wean ourselves off in a day, and so, I think "the party of no" plays to American ignorance by behaving as though Obama is irresponsible to talk about getting off the oil pipe.

And down here we have Gov. Bobby Jindal. Even after this spill, he's saying the same thing he said in 2005, ignoring the risks and not considering how Louisiana should diversify its economy because he's in it for the short haul, or as one person said on Facebook last night, "We keep talking about our culture, seeing this oil disaster destroy that culture, and yet we still scream to drill even during this crisis."

Obama Returns to the Gulf Coast: Confidential BP Documents Suggest it Neglected Safety

In the video embedded, President Barack Obama speaks to residents of Alabama today and says some folks will be frustrated and others will be angry, but he promises life will get back to normal along the Gulf Coast, which had been severely impacted by what's called "the worst environmental disaster" in the nation's history. The president has given BP until midnight tonight to come up with a new oil containment plan. The New York Times published an article today about the chaos surrounding stopping the oil leak. The Huffington Post reports that a BP engineer called the Deep Horizon a ""nightmare well" days before the blast." This information came out in documents stamped confidential released today. You can see in the BP memo exchange below that engineer Brian P. Morel made the comment on April 14.


Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig: BP E-mail Calls It 'Nightmare Well' -

Chaotic is also the word workers have suggested describes the night of April 20 when the Deep Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf. The "nightmare well" documents support the story one worker told CNN's Anderson Cooper last week, which was he heard a BP official arguing with Transocean official before the explosion demanding that he take shortcut measures to get the well pumping oil again.

BP has promised to set up a "massive" victims compensation fund. Obama plans to address the nation tomorrow night, Tuesday, from the Oval Office.

See all oil spill posts at this blog here. The related post published immediately prior to this one is "CNN's Fareed Zakaria says focus on Obama's emotions is crazy."

Right on! Fareed Zakaria Says Focus On Obama's Emotions is Crazy During the Oil Spill Crisis

Right on, CNN's Fareed Zakaria! Regarding this obsession with Obama's emotions, Zakaria asks, is the media insane? I agree.

The media has been so busy being impressed by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's show of passion in comparison that it's failed to examine Jindal's history in oil. The media has not questioned the dog and pony shows that Drill-Baby-Drill Republicans are staging. (Zakaria didn't say that in the video below. I'm saying that.) Sadly, it's a political showmanship battle we're seeing, not a desperate sprint to solve the BP oil leak crisis.

And yes, Mr. Zakaria, you are right. Obama is being influenced by the need for more theatrics and the theatrics of others. "Got to give the people what they want," and they don't seem to want facts.

So, it's not just the media. It's also us, the people of the United States of America. We're focused on the wrong thing--President Barack Obama's show of emotion or lack of it.



I've written that Obama needs to put on a bigger show but also put that recommendation in context of our childish need for drama. Americans are addicted to theater; they crave symbolism over substance. I said "the president should fake effectiveness" because that's how America is judging him, but that way of judging policy and performance may be our downfall.

It doesn't matter to television viewers if Obama is making the right decision as long as they see action. How they would have applauded seeing Marines hit the shores of the Gulf coast to fight the monster oil spill, and yet, if those soldiers started falling over after contact with the Corexit dispersant, how they would have shouted at the president for putting "our boys" in unnecessary danger. Americans say their president is not a king, but they desire whoever sits in the Oval Office to be akin to a god.

Therefore, it's not just the media, as you so kindly framed your opinion, but also us, Americans who seem insane while viewing this crisis. To prefer fakery over substance reveals that we are a Hollywood nation of non-contemplative slackers who can't even critically think our ways out of an oily political bag.

Republicans Gloat Over Oil Spill: The HuffPo Leak

I watched WVUE, Channel 8, our local Fox station, Thursday night, June 10, because it advertised beforehand that it would cover Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's staged speech to "angry" oil rig workers. It's clear from my post that I knew Republicans were eating this BP oil spill crisis and subsequent drilling moratorium with a spoon. It gives them a way to appeal to people's emotions while they blast President Barack Obama.

Eventually they hope to make people believe everything that went wrong in the oil spill's aftermath is Obama's fault. Running strategy in politics is no different than running strategy in war. The goal is to defeat your opponent. What's fairness got to do with it?

Furthermore, yesterday, upon reading Interior Secretary Salazar's suggestion that the moratorium may be over soon, I recognized that the Obama administration may be buckling under pressure to stop the temporary ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. I said Obama is having a Pontius Pilate moment.

So, I was not shocked to see that Republicans are gloating, as reported by the Huffington Post. However, I'm not even sure the supposed leak of gloating emails to the HuffPo website is an actual accident.

Republican communication strategists in Washington and Louisiana are thrilled at the press coverage of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, according to e-mails from GOP officials accidentally sent to the Huffington Post.

The HuffPo writer mentions a Louisiana single father, Peter Duet, who tells a story in the Fox 8 video about talking to his young daughter about his need to work.

"Baby, so daddy can take you to Wal-Mart and buy you toys," he says, explaining that he won't be able to buy his daughter toys -- or food, for that matter -- if Obama doesn't reverse his decision.

Yep. Having worked with people who seek to shape political opinion before, I know that clips like that are priceless. Democrats use the same tactics when they're smart enough to make an emotional appeal rather than a policy-analysis appeal. It's true that humans are more susceptible to pathos than logos.

But what about this so-called Republican accidental send to HuffPo? It's fishy to me because there's a political advantage to this leak. It gets Republicans more press on a big liberal site like Huffington Post, where it's expected Republicans will be blasted anyway. Would HuffPo have even posted the Fox 8 video or given it more thought if the story had not been brought to its attention by a supposed email accident on the conservative side?

There will be people who call themselves progressives watching the video at Huffington Post who start to think Obama is wrong to have called for a moratorium. Consider media outlets reported Sarah Palin's misrepresentation implying Obama was in deep with BP without bothering to check facts first, and some progressives believed it because it was repeated on Politico or some other site they read. Busy humans don't check information. They mistakenly believe news outlets and websites have checked all facts before publishing a story, or that he said/she said journalism is news you can trust. So, sometimes bad publicity does the trick on shaping opinion as much as good publicity.

But again, I've been saying all along that Jindal and other Republicans are dancing over this oil leak because it's virtually impossible for the president to escape hostility. Most people don't follow complex topics and read the details. They just hear soundbites and skim headlines.

Drilling Moratorium Will End Soon? Obama's Pontius Pilate Dilemma

AP photo. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar,
left, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu,
right, flank President Obama.

After hearing the La. Governor Bobby Jindal staged speech to "angry" oil rig workers yesterday, revving Gulf Coast residents to fight the six-month moratorium on oil drilling, I told my daughter Obama may have to do a Pontius Pilate on the Gulf Of Mexico.

I meant Obama may have to listen to the clamor of the crowd and hold his hand over the wetlands and oil-soaked birds and then wave it over humans who need to feed their families and let the crowd choose what's crucified, the Gulf of Mexico's marine life with our wetlands and wildlife or Louisiana residents' jobs.

She said, "You know he can't do that, Mom. He's the leader. He has to make a choice."

Well, there are ways for leaders to save face. All they have to do is send forth an underling to say circumstances have changed. That's what's happening here as Bloomberg BusinessWeek is reporting that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the "shutdown of 33 rigs (for six months) to overhaul offshore drilling regulations" may end sooner than planned.

The U.S. is conducting a “thorough environmental analysis and scientific study” of offshore drilling after BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico well blew out, causing the worst U.S. oil spill, Salazar told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. President Barack Obama ordered a six-month halt on drilling in waters 500 feet and deeper while a commission investigates.

Obama's been saying that the ban is in place for safety reasons. Per the article, "Salazar said the moratorium is “the pause button, it’s not the stop button,” and he emphasized that oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has not stopped. A convenient rhetoric, it seems, just as people show they mean business over bashing Obama's moratorium. Let's see how much time passes before voila!--analysis complete.

Which Politicians Score More Dollars from the Oil Industry?

I recorded Lee Zurik's report on Fox News 8 in New Orleans last night about which politicians receive campaign contributions from oil companies. Zurik's pretty thorough, but his report didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

These oil money "investigative reports" are popping up everywhere. For instance, Poynter just ran a piece called "Looking into Which Politicians Get the Most Money From BP, Other Oil Companies." It cites OpenSecrets, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics, as its source of information. I was aware of its database as well. It's good that some analysts and news outlets aren't letting the misrepresentation of campaign contributions from oil data slide.

However, some bloggers and mainstream media outlets have been haphazardly reporting oil industry and BP contributions to politicians, and that's been a pet peeve of mine during this oil spill crisis. Some people repeat misinformation such as the accusation Sarah Palin made that Barack Obama is in deep with BP without considering sources and checking facts.

And I mean, come on, Sarah Palin as credible! The woman thinks she understands foreign policy because she can see Russia from her window, and she blames environmentalists for the oil spill.

But I guess we should expect that some Republicans would take advantage of this crisis and try to pull a few fast ones like calling out President Barack Obama on the money he's received from BP while ignoring their own people are flush in oil money by comparison. Furthermore, it's not surprising some fair-weather progressives have swallowed the misinformation as though the news didn't come from the Drill, Baby, Drill! camp.

The conservative talking point repeated, which also appears in the Fox News 8 piece online, is that Obama received more money from BP in election cycle 2008 than any other candidate, $71,051. Some folks take that soundbite and run, and even the Fox local news report has as its video graphic a picture of Obama with $71,051, a way of editorializing through presentation.

You have to read the whole article and watch the video to learn Republicans get more money overall and that Obama's money didn't come from the corporation itself but BP employees. However, Zurik also tells viewers that Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter's treasure chest includes a pool of black gold, $242,000. That's fat for a senator, and anyone who has been paying attention as this oil spill story has grown could tell Vitter appears to be in oil's pocket.

Responding to Palin's misrepresentation, OpenSecrets, the Center of Responsive Politics, which is the same organization that Palin used as a reference when she tried to smear Obama, had the following to say at its blog:

Of the $71,051 Obama raised from BP-related sources, all of it came from individual employees, as Obama did not accept contributions from political action committees. During the entire 2008 election cycle, the company's PAC and employees favored Republicans in their giving at a ratio of about 3-1. And the oil and gas industry as a whole gave Palin and her running mate John McCain $2.4 million -- more than double the $901,000 Obama collected from the industry overall. BP itself is currently ranked as #106 on the Center's "Heavy Hitter" list of companies and organizations that spend the most on federal campaign contributions.

Writing at Time on the game, "BP And Obama: Playing Internet Gotcha With Campaign Finance Numbers," Mark Scherer analyzes a Politico story that went wild with the Obama-BP story, and he says:

It is true that according to this online database (OpenSecrets again) Obama received slightly more money from BP's PAC and employees since 1990 than anyone else. But there is a major a reason for that, which the story fails to mention: People who run for President raise much more money, and received much more money from BP interests--and just about every other interest. ...

*MediaMatters said in May that Obama received no PAC money from BP during his run for the presidency.

Scherer continues, discussing how the numbers are skewed and mispresented, and then says:

That's one way of slicing the numbers. Another would be to say that in the last 20 years, BP has given 71 percent of its money to Republicans, and 29 percent to Democrats.

After many of my posts about the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, I link to "Flashback: Jindal Tells How He Grew Up with Oil Industry and that Threat to Environment is Balanced in Louisiana." MSM has been awfully cushy with the governor lately, ignoring his past.

In addition, I share info from the WSJ fact check on Sarah Palin misrepresentations. The Wall Street Journal reports, "According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.." I do this because I know people don't pay attention and check facts.

In my home state, Louisiana, almost everybody's in bed with oil, Republican and Democratic politicians alike. Yes, Democratic Senators Melancon and Landrieu, we see you. But nationally, Republicans are the darlings of the oil industry.

So, if Republicans want to assert that politicians should be pristine in taking money from oil corporations, then they should start with their own people. I'll gladly get behind any push to stop all politicians from accepting oil donations.

In the interest of the fair relay of information, BP's contribution to the Obama campaign represents less than .0001 % of his the total he collected of nearly $750 million. In terms of influence, that's approaching infinitesimal.

The percentage he collected from the oil and gas industry in general during his presidential campaign represents slightly more than than .001 %. Compare that to John McCain receiving $2.4 million from oil and gas, more than double the amount Obama received, but collecting less than half as much in campaign contributions overall. If money buys access, then who was giving more access to oil in terms of ratios?

Let's remember that Obama broke the mold in collecting money, a substantial portion of it from ordinary people giving less than $200 each. Nevertheless, I wish none of the candidates took money from large corporations, Obama included, and if we want to get on this president's case for approving more offshore drilling earlier this year, fine. But any progressive jumping on the Obama-BP conspiracy train is drinking conservative fringe spiked punch. They need to quit.

(Video) Obama Looks for Ass to Kick When He Talks to Experts

MSNBC is promoting Matt Lauer's Today Show interview with President Barack Obama, which airs tomorrow, June 8. Already, the clip of Obama on the oil spill, saying he talks to experts so he'll know "whose ass to kick" is making the rounds. I have no comment other than what I've said before, "Obama needs to put on the Great Oil Spill Show." See also, "Obama calls GOP the party of No."

And will Obama's use of the word "ass" appease Bill Maher and Spike Lee and the rest of America clamoring for "the angry Obama"? I still say people want to see him in chest-high waders scooping oil from the Gulf of Mexico with his hands.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And I couldn't help but add Saturday Night Live's old skit about Obama not showing anger, but should he show anger, he becomes "The Rock Obama."



Related:

• All oil spill posts at this blog
• Flashback: Jindal Tells How He Grew Up with Oil Industry and that Threat to Environment is Balanced in Louisiana. Yes, he's anti-regulation.
• Wall Street Journal, Sarah Palin misrepresents information again. WSJ: "According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.."
• Obama needs more drama: He needs to put on the Great Oil Spill Show
• Obama knew the spill was hopeless early on.

Obama Visits Louisiana, Revs Up Oil Spill Theater

President Barack Obama was in Louisiana yesterday, perhaps realizing he must put on a bigger show because Americans love theatrics and symbolism. In addition, he said on his radio address Saturday that "he will stand with Gulf Coast residents "until they are made whole" from the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico."

The AP report here says the Obama administration is facing the public's growing criticism of its handling of the oil spill crisis. Well, Fox News is the ratings winner. A lot of Americans don't know the difference between opinion reporting and fact reporting, I guess. But even some progressives are angry at Obama.

All the president can do is put on a show to make people feel that something's being done because no matter what he does, he can't make the oil go away, not unless he has a magic wand stashed somewhere in the Oval Office.

I watched the Disaster in the Gulf special on Dateline NBC last night. Overall, it was good, but I noticed it spent a lot of time questioning Obama's response while not saying a peep about Bobby Jindal's long history of loving oil, wanting offshore drilling, but now that there's a disaster, he wants to blame a president that is not an ally of big oil.

Jindal says Obama's response has been slow, hoping we'll forget that Jindal himself has been quick to say drill. Two years before the MMS (in 2007) under the Bush administration was busy painting a picture that an oil leak posed no real threat to beaches, Jindal was at an MMS event saying Louisiana could balance both drilling offshore and protecting its wetlands.

Related:

• All oil spill posts at this blog
• Flashback: Jindal Tells How He Grew Up with Oil Industry and that Threat to Environment is Balanced in Louisiana. Yes, he's anti-regulation.
• Wall Street Journal, Sarah Palin misrepresents information again. WSJ: "According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.."
• Obama needs more drama: He needs to put on the Great Oil Spill Show
• Obama knew the spill was hopeless early on.

BP Oil Spill Hits Florida Beaches. Laura Bush Said Don't Blame Obama for Oil Spill Clean-up Delay

Oil washes onshore in Florida, reports Good Morning America, and other news sources such as Federal News Radio. Alabama's also seeing and smelling oil. However, BP is seeing some progress with the containment cap it lowered onto the leak late last night.



In addition to this news, horrific pictures of birds trapped in BP's oil slick have been circulating the web. The photos here will break your heart and turn your stomach.

In other GMA news former first lady Laura Bush told Good Morning America that Obama should not be blamed for not being able to stop the oil.

"I think they're doing everything they can do. Absolutely. Just like we did with [Hurricane] Katrina," Bush, 63, told "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts in an interview taped Wednesday that aired today. "You know, it's not one person's responsibility. The president can't do every single thing there is to do."

So, in one quote, she strokes George, sort of exonerating him of his missteps as wives do, and also gives Obama a break.

What got George into trouble most often, however, was his attitude and mouth. He put his foot in it again recently, casually admitting he approved the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and Bush said he'd do it again.

Obama Says GOP is Still Same Old, Same Old

On June 1st, I wrote that Obama needs to put on a better show regarding this oil spill. Yesterday, June 2, I read that Spike Lee's advised the president from afar to "go off!" while CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger told us, we "elected (Obama) because he is cool, calm and analytical.

That's what we wanted to see after George W. Bush, so we made him president. But now the disaster in the Gulf has made many of us want to see someone else -- with plenty of anger, emotion and bravado. We want him to yell at BP. We want him to loudly tell us he's whipping the cleanup effort into shape.

Seems like we're on a similar wavelength. As Borger continues, she says we want to see Obama angry, but a man full of rage is not who we elected.

Indeed, I said in May that if Obama had shown intense passion when this crisis began, Republicans would have simply painted him as the angry or emotional black man. But long before now I also said Obama describes himself as even-tempered. Furthermore, he is a man of compromise. Why some of these other people who supported him seem to have forgotten that, I don't know. O.K. I do know, but I'll leave others to read more and ponder the reason.

Nevertheless, judging from the video embedded in this post of Obama speaking in Pennsylvania yesterday and reminding his audience that Republicans have no new ideas, that the GOP has become the "party of no," I'd say the president's patience is wearing thin.

Related: Flashback: Jindal Tells How He Grew Up with Oil Industry and that Threat to Environment is Balanced in Louisiana. Yes, he's anti-regulation.

Also, Sarah Palin misrepresents information again. WSJ: "According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.."

Flashback: Jindal Tells How He Grew Up with Oil Industry and that Threat to Environment is Balanced in Louisiana

Earlier today I wrote that our Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and our Republican Sen. David Vitter are playing a great game of Good Cop-Bad Cop during this oil crisis. But, you know, just in case anyone thinks I've pulled Jindal's love of the oil industry out of thin air, I am posting his 2005 statement in support of offshore drilling and his faith that we could drill and protect the environment as well.

He delivered this speech when he was a lowly congressman. It comes from the government publication "The benefits of offshore oil and gas development : oversight field hearing before the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the Committee on Resources, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, first session, Saturday, August 13, 2005, in Port Fourchon, Louisiana."



I'm fed up with Jindal scoring political points during this crisis given his pro-offshore oil drilling position and objection even to other regulations that protect the environment, such as global warming pollution regulations. While we watch him on the news daily, there's talk of his great crisis management skills and how presidential he looks, but let's not forget that Jindal is also shortsighted.

Gov. Jindal is a man consistently unable to see that deregulation and privatization is problematic. He may not be as dimwitted as Sarah Palin, but he is as myopic when it comes to drilling for oil.

Please see the date of the speech, August 13, 2005, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit, during the Bush years. Jindal acknowledges in the speech concerns about the possibility the levees could not withstand a level 4 hurricane, and he mentions threats to the barrier islands, but he obviously thinks the dangers of not drilling outweigh losing the marsh. So, it's fitting that his old speech should surface at the beginning of a hurricane season approaching the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as scientists speculate what could happen to Louisiana if a hurricane slips on this oil slick.

Jindal shared with the subcommittee that he comes from a family of engineers and the importance of Louisiana keeping petrochemical jobs.

My family--I was born and raised down here. My family has grown up in this industry. The reason we have jobs in my family is because there is an oil and gas industry. My wife is an engineer, my father is an engineer, my father-in-law is an engineer, my wife's uncles are all engineers. I was kind of the disappointment in the family. I couldn't be an engineer, so I went to Congress instead.

But I want to make four quick points not only for the record but for my colleagues here. First is that Louisiana is proud to do more than its share to secure our nation's energy demands. We, as everybody in this room knows, we provide 25 to 30 percent of the nation's energy, 18 to 20 percent comes through this port alone. For decades we have done more than our share to make sure we have a domestic source of energy.

Congress has just passed an energy bill reaffirming our commitment to becoming energy independent over the next 25 years. We've got within North America reserves to do that. It will develop the technology and it will develop those fields. I don't think any of us needs a reminder of how dangerous it is for us to become overly dependent on foreign sources of energy. We have seen what that can do to our economy. We can see now, in an international competitive economy, we can see what that does for our dollar. We are now increasingly fighting China and other countries for limited energy resources. (Jindal in 2005)

One of the things the energy bill he references, Energy Policy Act of 2005, did was "authorize the Department of the Interior to grant leases for activity that involves the production, transportation or transmission of energy on Outer Continental Shelf lands from sources other than gas and oil."

Jindal continued, saying he was "thrilled" to get more money for Louisiana oil production from the federal government, and that he believes we know how to produce oil and protect the environment. It's not a case of either/or down here. It's both, Jindal declared.

Apparently, then-congressman Jindal did not grasp how much damage an oil leak like the one we have in the Gulf of Mexico now could do. Like other conservatives, such as Libertarian Rand Paul, who say "accidents happen," Jindal believed the quest for oil was worth the risk to the environment, and he was very much for mega-oil companies bringing money to the state while the federal government bears the responsibility to protect the coastline.

You see how promoting states rights works. If we're talking something like pro-choice, gay marriage, or race matters, it's states rights all the way. The states will take care of their own business. If we're talking cleaning up the coast after state leaders lobby for offshore drilling, then it's states take the money, but let the feds take care of the mess while the states weep and kvetch. The same must go for being anti-anything-that-smacks-of-socialism but pro-federal-government-holding-businesses'-coats when disaster strikes. Maybe filmmaker Michael Moore is right: American politicians aren't having a love affair with democracy but with capitalism.

As Jindal might say, don't get me wrong here. I agree that if we're going to keep drilling for oil in Louisiana, then the state deserves whatever money that should come to it from oil. We've been shafted in the past on our oil deals. However, unlike Jindal and some conservatives, I think offshore drilling is too big a risk. I lean toward what Bob Herbert said in an op ed at the New York Times:

If an oil well is too far beneath the sea to be plugged when something goes wrong, it’s too deep to be drilled in the first place.

We need to know when to set aside old ways of thinking and focus on developing alternative sources of energy. Fossil fuel is finite.

Before Jindal gets to his more eloquent rhetoric in his speech regarding balancing offshore drilling with restoring our wetlands, however, and after he thanks the MMS (Minerals Management Service) for showing him, Chevron, and others bon temps, Jindal uses a story about his daughter, then three years old, to explain how most people don't know from where our energy comes. We ordinary citizens and anti-drill activists just don't get that we have to drill in the ocean, I suppose.



Update: But Jindal does have good southern manners. Today he's in the media again thanking the White House for approving his plan to build sand berms to stop oil from getting in the marshlands.

Jindal called on BP and the federal government Tuesday to pay for his ambitious plan to build sand berms on the state's barrier islands to catch the oil offshore and keep it from getting to sensitive inland marshes.

Until Wednesday, the Coast Guard had only approve one segment of the six the governor had requested. Jindal said as it stands, the state now has permission to proceed with about 40 miles of sand barriers.

"I want to thank the White House. Certainly, it's a step forward," Jindal said. "We would have preferred it came through weeks ago, we would have preferred they approved the whole plan. But today is a step forward.

"Now I'm calling on BP, and I'm calling on the federal government: Help us to make sure BP is a responsible party. Thank you for approving our entire six segments, but now I'm calling on you, don't let it be an approval on paper alone."

A Palin supporter on Twitter informed me of the news with the quip that Obama was "44 days too late" in approving the plan. To that I say why should anyone have automatically believed Jindal knew what he was talking about with this plan? He did, after all, think no serious harm could come from offshore drilling and as Len Bahr, the blogger at LACOASTPOST, writes:

... the governor wants massive federal help to restore our sinking coast but vehemently objects to even modest federal restrictions on the petrochemical operations that are critical to the state economy but that have long contributed to coastal deterioration.

Bahr, who is retired, served in the Louisiana Governor's Office of Coastal Affairs under five governors. He was director of the Governor's Applied Coastal Science program. (PDF)

Would we be where we are with a leak in the Gulf of Mexico if conservatives hadn't pushed so hard for support of offshore drilling while also opposing regulation of the oil industry?

I'm glad Obama approved Jindal's sandberm plan (if it will work, and assumptions that it will are questionable). As I wrote yesterday, we're effed with this oil spill, but the president needs to put on a show. Nevertheless, at worst, Obama could be accused of moving slowly to levy all the federal government's resources in cleaning up the oil and being a push-over on compromise with conservatives on environmental issues. He's buckled to pressure to accept offshore drilling, but it would be a stretch to pin the legacy of coddling big oil on him. He is not a card-carrying member of the "Drill, Baby, Drill!" gang. Bending over for big oil is more a Republican thang.