Hobgoblins and Community Organizers

For some reason, I don't remember a lot of quotable lines from my college literature classes.  One I do remember is from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, Self Reliance.  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."  Today, I think Emerson would add community organizers who become president to his list of those with hobgoblins. 

President Obama has shown a tendency to react from his gut.  From his first month in office when he made his off-teleprompter "it is apparent the police acted stupidly" remark, the president has to use his own words, acted stupidly and then stubbornly stood by those actions.  In the case of this remark, Obama was barely a month into office, and most of us were still giving him the benefit of the doubt.  He had no experience in a position where his every word and action was being watched and scrutinized.  So most of us gave him the chance to retract, or at least soften his remarks, especially since he admitted that he did not have "all the facts."  But, Emerson's hobgoblins got to the president.  He never backed off his comments.

Then we had Arizona passing state legislation making illegal immigration illegal in their state.  When asked for a reaction, President Obama called the legislation "misguided."  Without reading the legislation.  After learning that the law mirrored already existing federal law, the president stuck to his comments and went even further by ordering an investigation of the civil rights ramifications of the law.  A little reflection should lead "the smartest man in the room" to the conclusion that civil rights are applicable to citizens, and illegal immigrants by definition are not citizens, but the hobgoblins have struck again.  The federal government has decided to pursue legal action against the state.  Again, the president has had ample time to adjust his stance as he has learned the facts and learned the opinion of the voters.  But once again, he is remaining "foolishly consistent."

Last week Senator Jon Kyl told a town hall meeting that the president, in a private meeting, told Kyl that he had no reason to close the American borders, as citizens of border states and citizens in general, are begging him to do.  President Obama told Senator Kyl that if he closed the borders and enforced federal immigration laws, Congress would have no motivation to compromise on immigration reform, or amnesty.  Think this is a case of Kyl making up the president's quotes to advance Arizona's view?  Well once again, President Obama's got that hobgoblin issue.
 

More recently, in reaction to the British Petroleum leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the president announced a moratorium on drilling in the gulf.  Upon further review, the moratorium would do nothing but cost the region jobs, not only for the six months announced, but probably forever.  Some estimates of the loss of payroll, and tax revenue, reach the billions.  Those estimates do not include the loss caused by the leak itself.  So when a federal judge suspended the moratorium, the president had the perfect opportunity to adjust his stance and in essence, save both face and jobs.  He could have said something along the lines of "we tried, but a judge overturned our action.  That's the way checks and balances works."  He could then let the drilling continue, especially since this is the first spill in more than 4,000 wells drilled in the Gulf.  Instead of letting the judge's decision stand and moving on, within minutes of the announcement of the judge's decision, the Obama administration announced their decision to appeal the decision.  Not only is the government appealing the decision, but today Secretary of Interior Salazar announced a new moratorium!

Three days after the accident and resulting leak, the Dutch, Norwegians, and British offered to help with the clean up effort with tankers, skimmers, and booms.  The federal government declined the offers, citing the Jones Act.  The Jones Act requires all ships working between U.S. ports be American built, American flagged, and consist of American crews, all to protect unions.  While the Act has been suspended many times, the Obama administration refused to do so.  After more than two months of massive amounts of oil moving to beaches along the Gulf coast, commentators started questioning the application of the Jones Act.  The British and Dutch again offered their help with the clean up.  The president had the opportunity to exorcise his hobgoblins and suspend the Jones Act, but, once again, has acted foolishly consistently and refused the help.

We have been told that President Obama is one of most intelligent people ever to hold the office of president.  So, while is he repeatedly the victim of the hobgoblins of a little mind?  It could be that he knows all the facts, but is working to advance his agenda.  It's either part of his plan, or we were lied to all along and the president's not as intelligent as we were led to believe.  And if that's the case, what is the agenda of those who led us to believe we were electing "the smartest man in the room?"  I think we have more than hobgoblins to worry about.

Feel Better Now?

With BP's accident in the Gulf of Mexico, a lot of reports have referred back to 1989 and the spill of the Exxon Valdez.  So, here's a little history of the spill and its consequences.  First of all, Exxon paid for the cleanup, estimated at about $2 Billion.  In addition to the cleanup cost, Exxon paid about $6 billion in damages.  No one feels bad for Exxon, they deserved to pay for their negligence.  And it was negligence.  The captain was sleeping off a bender below deck and the third mate was navigating without a sonar.  The Valdez's sonar had been inoperable for over a year.

Now for the unforeseen consequences.  After paying out somewhere around $8 billion for the accident, Exxon's lobbyists went to the federal government to request limits to the damages an oil company would be liable for in the case of future accidents.  A Republican Congress passed a bill limiting future oil company's liability to $75 million in the case of future accidents.  The bill was signed into law by a Democratic president, Bill Clinton.  The law also gave the federal government final say on drilling locations.  Starting to get a little queasy?

Now come forward to 2008.  British Petroleum requested permission to drill in 500 (that's 5 hundred) feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.  Louisiana's state government approves the plan.  The federal government then denies the request.  So, BP moves to its second option, a deep water project, 5,000 (that's 5 thousand) feet underwater to be specific.  You know what happened next.  An explosion and massive leak.

Three days after the accident, Norwegian, Dutch, and British companies offered use of their skimmers and booms to aid BP in the cleanup efforts.  The federal government declined the offer, citing the Jones Act which requires all ships working in U.S. waters to be American made, American flagged, and manned by American crews.  The Jones Act was a concession to unions in 1920,  as a protection to American shipbuilding jobs.  The Jones Act has been waived many times, most recently in the days after Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, to accept aid from other countries.

Within a week of the accident, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, requested permission from the federal government to allow the state to build sand barrier walls between barrier islands off the coast of his state.  His request was denied, citing the need for further study of the affects of the proposed sand barriers.  After repeatedly denied requests to the federal government to allow the barriers, on June 14, Jindal ordered the National Guard to start building the barriers.  

For the first time in his 16+ month reign, the president started to receive criticism from the mainstream media, and some pressure from Democrats.  His get tough response?  Let's suspend all offshore drilling projects for at least six months.  The consequence?  It will only cost the region about 14,000 high paying jobs and untold payroll, and coincidentally tax revenue.  Again coincidentally, the deepwater drilling equipment will move on to other projects, notably in Brazil, where Petrobas stands to make huge money with its deepwater wells.  Oh yeah, the Petrobas projects will receive billions of dollars in aid from U.S. Export-Import Bank either through loans or loan guarantees.  Turns a U.S. disaster into a giant windfall for the Brazilian state-owned company, huh?  Also a nice turn of profit for one of Petrobas' large investors, George Soros.  Soros, again coincidentally, contributed thousands personally, and who knows how much through his various foundations to the presidential campaign of Barack Hussein Obama.  Another coincidence, Soros' socialist foundations promote the view of America as an "institutionally oppressive nation."  Just as a coincidental link to other hot issues of our time, his foundations also campaign for open borders and social benefits and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Since destroying the economy of the region was not tough enough to satisfy the president's critics, he took on British Petroleum.  From the first day of the crisis, BP did everything possible to stop the leak.  They also said from the first day they would pay all legitimate claims.  The president said he didn't need to talk to the CEO of BP.  He said that in his experience, CEO's will tell you what you want to hear.  But the president's not interested in talk,  he wants action.  So, 58 days after the accident, the president meets with BP officials.  For 45 minutes.  The president is a busy man after all.  Lunch with Joe Biden after all.  That and an arm-twisting scheduled with senators who oppose his cap and trade scam legislation.  Give the man credit though.  In 45 minutes, the president got a promise of a $20 billion escrow account to be set up by BP to pay for claims.  Oh yeah, the account will be managed by the federal government.  The same government that handled the TARP theft and Stimulus ripoff so well.  That loud KA-CHING you just heard?  That came from the adding machines of unions all over the country.  You gulf shrimpers and resort owners better not hold your breath waiting for your money.   

Feel better now?

President Obama finally found out whose a$$ to kick. Yours.  Again.