Results not matching Obama rhetoric Comments July 9, 2010
BY STEVE HUNTLEY President Obama likes giving speeches, and he's made so many that he has laid down a substantial record of addresses, orations, talks, pronouncements and remarks on which to judge his policies in the White House. There's plenty there to give heartburn to his supporters.
As a candidate, Obama promised to protect the environment, get tough with the oil industry and let science guide the decisions of his administration. It turns out all that went out the window last year when a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., blocked drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico on grounds the government had not adequately prepared for a major oil spill at sea and relied on "irrational" environmental analysis.
The administration got the court to reverse itself and allow drilling in the Gulf. It did so by noting the importance of Gulf oil to the economy and the importance of nearly $10 billion in Gulf oil royalties to the government. The White House also wanted to back offshore drilling as a way to persuade conservative Democrats and Republicans to support its green energy legislation. The court's reversal allowed for drilling at the BP Deepwater site that blew up in April.
After the spill, the Interior Department empaneled engineers to recommend new safety measures for offshore drilling and made it appear that the experts supported a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. The engineers protested the moratorium was a political move and a bad idea that had huge economic costs and raised safety issues.
After his election, Obama pledged to achieve immigration reform in the first year of his term. Didn't happen. Last week Obama gave another immigration speech but offered no specific legislation, and virtually no one believes a bill will pass this year. Obama's speech was a thinly disguised political harangue aimed to fire up Hispanic voters to back Democrats in the fall elections. Cynically manipulating Latinos as political pawns won't do much to advance the just cause of comprehensive immigration reform.
The administration pushed the $862 billion stimulus package last year as a measure to keep the unemployment rate from going over 8 percent. It's at 9.5 percent and would be at 10 percent if hundreds of thousands of people had not simply stopped searching for a job. A New York Times/CBS poll found 6 percent of Americans believe the last stimulus created jobs.
Obama told us his $1 trillion health care overhaul would lower medical costs, reduce the federal deficit and not threaten Americans happy with their insurance. The Congressional Budget Office says health care costs will continue to rise and put "tremendous pressure" on the federal budget. Some companies are calculating that it may be cheaper to pay a fine than to continue financing employer-provided insurance. And many seniors stand to lose Medicare Advantage coverage.
On the international front, Obama set out to improve America's standing in the Muslim world. His measures to achieve that ranged from a televised speech last June in Cairo to bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia to instructing the head of NASA, the federal agency charged with space exploration, to, in NASA administrator Charles Bolden's words, "engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering." And what have been the results of this "feel good" diplomacy? Attitudes toward the United States and/or Obama have fallen in Muslim nations such as Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama rivals Hillary Clinton and John McCain mocked Obama's oratory as elevating rhetorical skills, which he had, over the experience necessary to lead the nation, which they claimed. Eighteen months into his presidency, Obama is having a hard time making his deeds live up to his words.
