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This is Leadership?

By: Rep. James Sensenbrenner (WI) (Diary)  |  June 10th, 2010 at 03:15 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

“We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.” – President Obama

“He [BP CEO] wouldn’t be working for me.” – President Obama

“Bring those responsible to justice on behalf of the victims of this catastrophe.” – President Obama

I could go on, but instead, I ask: how are these comments by the President helping stop a huge oil leak that is devastating our waters, endangering our wildlife, and negatively impacting the economy of the Gulf region, as well as hurting the people there, again?

There will be plenty of time for the President to investigate, potentially prosecute, talk tough and play the blame game AFTER the oil leak is stopped. Right now, the immediate focus of the President should be cooperating with everyone to stop the leak. We’ve learned from the past that cooperation is key.

It came as a complete shock to me when I heard the President say on June 8, DAY FIFTY of the oil spill, “I have not spoken to him [BP CEO] directly … Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s going to say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.”


Speaking of words, in his May 27 press conference, the President said, “My job is to get this fixed… in case you were wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down.”

And speaking of actions, in that same press conference, the President also admitted, “When it comes to stopping the leak down below, the federal government does not possess superior technology to BP.”

BP and the government need each other. So, I question again, how is the President publically chastising and threatening BP with criminal actions – a company that has pledged to pay for the damage caused by the oil spill accident and who likely wants this resolved more than anyone– helping to stop the oil? How is that finding a workable solution so we don’t see more economic loss? How is that encouraging cooperation between BP and the Obama Administration to get the job done?

And how do you get the actions the President says he’s so interested in, given he’s the one taking responsibility, when we are 50+ days into this spill and President Obama still hasn’t had a direct discussion with the CEO of BP?

Former President Harry S. Truman once said, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Perhaps, it’d be more appropriate to share a modified version of this quote with President Obama: “It is amazing what you can accomplish TOGETHER if you do not care who gets the credit OR THE BLAME.”

It’s time the President stopped speaking out of both sides of his mouth and started being the leader. Take action, not just talk tough. Once the President can “plug the damn hole,” then he is more than welcome to find “whose ass to kick.”

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COMMENTS

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  • smitch61

    Just think what could have been had the president in the very beginning rallied the American people, put off blaming anyone until everything was completed and met with people from everywhere to get things going. In my heart I believed this whole thing would be on the way to recovery if only it had been handled differently. God help us when we have a terrorist attack.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

      He seems like such a nice man….

      • Gmac

        not a leader and it shows every time he opens his mouth how out of touch with reality he and his cabinet are.

        • Tbone

          “Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he

          • snowshooze

            Can we get it on a Tee Shirt?

      • Locked and Loaded
        • http://www.thehayride.com MacAoidh

          …but I think it’s even worse than that. I think Obama is attempting to bankrupt BP. To what end, I don’t know – down here in Louisiana it’s becoming a major concern that BP is either going to go under before it can pay off all claims (three days ago that seemed ludicrous and now it’s all over the financial wires), or they’re going to get taken over by somebody like PetroChina – who would be the worst possible outfit in charge.

          Frightening times. We’re on the brink right now.

        • snowshooze

          Keep ‘em coming…

        • stephaniet

          …win!

      • mdd1956

        cooking some of that no salt, no sugar, no fat, no preservatives, no MSG, no dairy, no gluten, no wheat, no hormone, no nitrate, all local “food” for dinner.

        No wonder he looks weak, there is nothing to eat in the White House

        • Scope
    • greyfox65

      I don’t want to be too harsh, but it becomes more clear everyday that this “reflective, somber, professorial” president has nothing more than the “look”. He can talk the talk but he cannot walk the walk. Behind that “studious” personna is an educated mind which doesn’t know what to do. CNN announced this a.m that Tony Hayward, CEO of BP has been “commanded” to meet with the President. Today is day 53 of the most destructive environmental disaster in this nation’s history, and only now has the President “commanded” a meeting with BP? Most of the Gulf Coast economy has been virtually shut down, and the wild life suffers an ever increasing devastation. What did the President do during the past 52 days? Partying at the White House, vacation time, etc. Did he deal with the North Korean act of war on South Korea? Not to anyone’s knowledge. Is he dealing with the flotilla of “peace”? Not to anyone’s knowledge. Is he dealing with the BP oil spill? Not to anyone’s knowledge. Photo ops on Gulf Coast beaches with Bobby Jindahl screaming in the background cuts no ice with anyone but CNN.
      87 million and counting, Mr. President. Watcha gonna do?

  • deevee

    do a great job in Congress.
    You have to know as many Americans know that President Obama is not a leader, he has shown himself and his administration to be incompetent. You are a leader and there are others who serve with you in Congress who are true leaders. Would you please be the Statesmen and lead the charge to correct this catastrophe in the making.
    Alas, all Pres. Obama’s actions are worse that the original oil leak ie. closing down all deep water drilling, now thousands will be unemployed, oil prices are already increasing.
    Leadership needs to come from the adults in the room.

    • johnconradarens

      Two thoughts:

      1) President Obama’s rhetorical flourish about “ass kicking” is even more breathtaking when you hear the entire quote in context: “A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standin

      • Fla Mom

        Re: “It came as a complete shock to me when I heard the President say on June 8, DAY FIFTY of the oil spill,

        • bobojake
        • constitutionalconservative

          I have been loath to blame Obama for the oil spill (much as I’d like to politically) because ultimately the spill, and even much of the effort to stop it, inherently is not under his control. Deepwater drilling is a highly technical field and the government doesn’t necessarily have the right people to lead the technical solution.

          But the fact that he still hasn’t spoken to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, is a complete embarrassment and abdication of responsibility. I hope the Republicans will get this news out to a wide audience.

          • carolinalady

            or for not cleaning it up, but we can blame him for OBSTRUCTING EVERYBODY ELSE’S EFFORTS TO DO IT!

        • golfrbob

          Well lets see, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a jihadic islamic(remember the young lady he had shot in the street); Kim Jong Il is a communist dictator-friendly to islamists; Chavez is a communist dictator-friendly to islamists. Bashar al-Assad is a Sunni dictator-friendly to islamists. Looks as if Obama has chosen who he likes to talk to-just not Israel and BP’s operation manager(most probably Christian). Hummh! Interesting.

          • http://www.periodictablet.com superamerican

            Go back and read my posts to my blog from before Obama was elected. I knew. He was an inexperienced somewhat dim, but charasmatic individual. He had no economic education and a bitter distrust of business and businesspeople. And here we are. Running record deficits, expanding the size of government to record size and diminishing the very business that made this the greatest, most prosperous nation in history. Without successful businesses there will be no more real jobs.

            And here we are in a democracy. Free to select then abandon presidents. He’ll go on to be the darling of the Left once again, as a movie star. IF he can learn to memorize his lines, and there’s no guarantee here!

            So please read my conservative blog: http://www.periodictablet.com

            Superamerican

      • golfrbob

        Obama wanted this delay:
        Lets see: to further his cap and trade he said ‘NO’ for sand berms; he said ‘NO’ to surface burns; he said ‘NO’ to waiving the Jones Act-Bush waived it for Katrina; he said ‘NO’ to pre-activating the federal law to have fire booms stockpiled as required. Sounds like he was doing what he said the Republicans were doing to his healthcare bill. Lets face it, by the time the berm study was to be completed the environment was to be destroyed. Had to be political!

    • angela9

      This so-called president( I cannot capitalize this), is a fake. He can talk, but he cannot do, because he is unqualified. John M. and Sarah Palin tried to tell everyone he was not a leader, He hates America by his apologizing, bowing to leaders of terroists, getting mad at the wrong people. I see people are waking up and realizing the mistake of placing this inept individual in the whitehouse. I am reading some great blogs! We the People will stop the progressive, socialists movement!We want our Costitution and it’s principles back in our government. Begin with getting GOD back where he belongs!

      • http://twitter.com/michael_s_grant msgrant

        My sentiments exactly, and well-said!

  • E Pluribus Unum

    The world waits for the Boy President to figure out how to do his job. He is both dumb and selfish in his motiviations.

    Gonna be a long wait.

  • taxpayer1234
    • nepanyrush

      Obama’s telling the public that he expects BP to pay the salaries of all workers laid off by an offshore drilling moratorium is just deflecting criticism of his ridiculous moratorium unto BP. His moratorium, against the advice of experts (contrary to the WH’s original assertion), is coming back to hurt Obama because of lost jobs. What does he do? Lift the moratorium? No, just say BP has to pay the wages so that everyone is mad at BP and not Barry.

      The strategy may work politically. Of course BP cannot pay for the entire Gulf economy. But Barry, the community organizer, is good at one thing: Pointing fingers at other people and deflecting the anger towards them.

      • mdd1956

        undesirable oil drilling incidents declined dramatically all throughout the Bush years, the Bush administration also cleaned up MMS and the Obama admin failed to follow-up on key prosecutions. After which time incidents began to rise again culminating in this latest disaster.

        the EPA thinks the air I exhale is a toxin and also thinks that specially designed oil spill clean-up ships from the Netherlands are environmentally dangerous

        same thing is happening here. I’ll leave it to you to decide how the players all correlate but the following are facts:

        we drill way out there in the gulf because we need the oil
        we also drill in foreign lands where folks aren’t as enviro concious (think Sadam)
        environmentalists limit safer near shore drilling
        we could do less drilling but enviros blocked nuclear
        they also resisted wind (kills birds)
        solar ( damages desert environment)
        hydro (kills the fishes)

        they would have us use the food supply for fuel and by the way it takes about a gallon of diesel to produce a gallon of of ethanol which contains 30% less energy

        Fact is: BHO is not in touch with reality

        • earlgrey

          I had a paper route at the time and would read the paper as I was delivering it. I remember reading about it and thinking how horrible the crime was, but at the same time it seemed so extreme that it was hard to believe.

          Looking back on it, the details were just totally unbelievable and I can’t believe people really fell for it.

    • suzanneatsuperior

      president, Funny and right on the money. I don’t know when it was written but it still stands the test of time. I t was a e-mail and gone now. One of them I can remember is” He would put up towers every 500 ft with a sniper and for them not to shot to kill if the Illegals were running south. I thought if only this were true 65% of Americans would vote him in.

    • carolinalady

      And then a good shaking by the shoulders, and a good talking-to all the while!

  • WIBadger

    …he’s good people. Not a grandstander but a conscientious effective reliable conservative. I know most folks despise incumbent politicians except for their own, but JS truly is one of us and I wish he would stay longer. His seat is safe for this year but I believe he’s retiring in 2012. He’s earned it though. Spent many successful years in the private sector before entering politics and he understands life outside of govt.

  • bobmontgomery

    ….the wages of all the people Obama laid off when he shut down drilling!! Do you believe the stones on this guy???

    • stephaniet

      …he *had* stones.

      • carolinalady

        I am retired and I have so little income that I paid no federal taxes last year. I depend on my BP dividend, it is the most amount of money I get from anywhere.

  • rneville1983

    ……by our faux “leader of the free world”. This pathetic guy couldn’t lead a Troop of Brownies on a camping trip and he done got hisself elected President of the United States. Well, elections have consequences.

    The people and entities against we should be railing are the mainstream media which totally abdicated it’s responsibility of vetting Obumble, and the Democratic Party which had the brilliant idea of putting a half-black man on the ticket, knowing he’d get the black vote regardless of how inexperienced he was. Both of these groups succeeded in providing us the most incompetent president in the history of the nation. But all the evidence was there from the very beginning to anyone who wanted to acknowledge it. Had Obumble been a white Republican with the same experience, and had he decided to throw his had into the Republican primaries, he’d have been politely told, “Don’t waste your time and money. Go away, get a couple decades of real experience under your belt, and then come back and maybe we’ll talk to you.”

    So here we have a guy no more qualified to run the country than your average academic hack, and not only our nation but the entire world is paying the price. Witness the new boldness of tyrants caused by Obumble’s obvious weakness as a world leader. His shortfalls might be mitigated had he surrounded himself with wise advisors experienced in the ways of running ANYTHING, but instead he dragged his pathetic gaggle of Chicago cronies with him and now he doesn’t have anyone to help him out of this giant hole he’s dug.

    And they’re not even politically savvy. I don’t feel like listing all the politically stupid things he’s done since taking office……there are too many.

    All we can do is hope to gain the House and Senate in November and castrate Obumble until we can get a real president in place in 2012.

    Pray for our nation.

  • dfallis

    The last 2-months have proven that this administration began with 1-plan and that disaster was not included in that plan. Some say he is using the BP oil spill to further Cap and Tax, some even think it was a planned accident (hard to figure how), but whatever the case, there is nothing getting done. It looks like BP is trying to cap the well and from news reports of excessive lunch breaks and no work on the beaches, thats about it, right now. Obama, on the other hand, has done a lot of photo ops, tried to buffer the negative effects of health care (that one is costing the American taxpayer), he’s partied, he’s rested, he’s had a lot of things on his mind and the people he cares nothing about are getting the message “loud and clear” due to his inaction. The only way to get this man’s attention is to become a 3rd-world nation with a disaster, because he did more for Haiti in a much more hasty fashion than he has done about the disasters on American shores.

  • ac7880

    It is all about appearances. What does it look like, or appear that Obama

    • suzanneatsuperior

      People!! He is a Muslim he doesn’t care about America. Here is a quote from HIS book the Audacity of Hope “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ulgy direction” also from Dreams of my Father “I ceased to advertise my mothers race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites” also ” I found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race” and this man is leading OUR country. This explanes why he does the things he does about the Terrotist and giving them trials in NY , What a slap to The American people. Do you think he cares about Illegals, NO how do you think his friends are getting in and why come down so hard on a Governer just trying to protect her state and him saying all that racist stuff on the so called news shows which helped fuel the riots. I could go on by why. Don’t go out and buy his books just go to the library if you can stomach it.

      • mbecker908

        I’m waiting with bated breath to hear you opinion of that one.

  • MICHAELNLA

    This clown is elected POTUS and what are his qualifications?

    A “community organizer?” Give me a break!

    “Leadership?” This guy couldn’t “lead” a “one-car-funeral”

    Although, O’Buffoon is the best thing to happen to the GOP since Jimmy Carter and come 11/2012, Hussein will be just like the “peanut-farmer”…”one & done!”

    Lenin sure had the Liberals nailed when he called them “Useful Idiots”

    Lets just hope the Gelding Old Party gets a testicle & spine implant by November so they can begin to recapture the Majority in the House and/or Senate next year and we can begin to turn this HUGE mess around that the Socialists/Liberals/Progressives or whatever the Marxists in Congress & the WH are calling themselves this week, have left us with!

    Haven’t we seen this plot before…Liberals tax & spend us into the abyss and the GOP is expected to come in and pull us out…again!

    And lets pray to God that the country can survive another two & half years of this bunch of incompetent fools in the WH & Congress.

    And this time, lets put a “stake in the heart of this monster” called “Socialism!”

  • singnan

    Sarah Palin for President!

    Read her book, Going Rogue. She doesn’t care who gets the credit, just whether it’s done right and done well.

    If she were President now, she’d be kicking **s.

    She’s smart, courageous, honest, a true individual and yes, beautiful. Don’t let that scare you, though. She’s a Patriot and doesn’t care what you think–only that you care about Freedom and the true meaning of our Constitution.

    • suzanneatsuperior

      Great Book, I found myself wanting to stand up and stick up for her againest her distracters.

    • Achance

      lately. She cares who gets the credit, and she makes sure she gets all of it.

    • mbecker908

      an ignorant fool.

  • bbari

    Does anyone beside me wonder what leadership we could expect should, God forbid, our homeland be attacked by one the many “peace-loving” groups that hate us so much?
    50+ days in those in Washington would still be wondering what to do …. if anything. In the mean time, our enemies would have “their boot on our throat” and we’d likely be dead meat. Too late then to “kick anyone’s a$$”.
    How’s that making you sleep nights America?

    • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica

      His scheming and incessant plotting has made him ineffective.

      I doubt he remembers his solemn oath to protect & defend the country & the constitution…

  • golfrbob

    Lets see: to further his cap and trade he said ‘NO’ for sand berms; he said ‘NO’ to surface burns; he said ‘NO’ to waiving the Jones Act-Bush waived it for Katrina; he said ‘NO’ to pre-activating the federal law to have fire booms stockpiled as required. Sounds like he was doing what he said the Republicans were doing to his healthcare bill. Lets face it, by the time the berm study was to be completed the environment was to be destroyed. Had to be political!