Washington – The oil spill hijacking Barack Obama’s presidency isn’t his Hurricane Katrina. It could be worse – more like the Iranian hostage crisis, which destroyed Jimmy Carter.
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Almost no one doubts that after a leisurely start, Obama is pushing every lever imaginable to fix the manmade disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, tonight’s prime-time speech to the nation – coupled with another trip to the Gulf Coast, summoning BP executives to a White House scolding tomorrow and round-the-clock briefings – is stark evidence Obama has been seriously damaged.
“He still has a window to get this right,” a close friend of the President told the Daily News. “If this thing is under control in a few months, people will be satisfied he’s done his best. If it’s still a problem by the end of the year, I think he’s toast.”
He’s not there yet, by any means. His closest aides are convinced that his all-hands-on-deck policy will eventually turn public opinion his way on the BP disaster, and that economic recovery will ultimately save him in 2012.
Yet each day the cable networks showcase images of more oil belching from the ocean floor resurrects symbolic parallels to the 1979-1981 Iranian debacle, which ended with Tehran releasing U.S. diplomats, 444 days after their capture, on the day Ronald Reagan took office.
Try as he might, Carter couldn’t get the hostages set free. To convince the country he was doing all he could, he suspended political travel for months.
The ploy backfired, reinforcing the image of presidential paralysis. It got so bad aides had to plant a question at a White House Q&A so Carter could declare the crisis “manageable enough” and lift his own travel embargo.
When intensive secret diplomacy failed, Carter ordered a daring military rescue operation. The raid was aborted because of mechanical problems – and eight servicemen died when two aircraft collided lifting off from the Iranian desert. The Iranians showed off charred American remains as trophies.
The failure of Operation Eagle Claw quickly became an unwelcome metaphor for American decline, feeding a sense that a nation that won World War II, conquered polio and sent men to the moon couldn’t work its will any longer.
Obama risks being similarly victimized by the same perception that nothing works anymore. Such feelings of hopelessness and national self-doubt damage incumbents most, especially so in today’s raging anti-Washington environment.
Obama can fume, with some justification, that his critics are hypocritical to bash him for a big-government agenda, then complain the government isn’t doing enough to fix the oil mess.
But as Jimmy Carter and John F. Kennedy observed, life is unfair. Obama didn’t cause the spill, but the country expects him to fix it and its disastrous aftermath.
“He’s doing everything he possibly can now, but he was slow out of the box and is still playing political catchup,” a veteran of the Carter White House said. “He’s like a ship captain – responsible for anything that goes wrong on his watch. This isn’t his fault, but it’s now his problem.”
This is not what dammages him. He has much, much more to his name than this. He’s simply hated because in overall he did a very poor job.
wow! the main stream media is coming around .. this will be very interesting to watch!
He didn’t ’cause’ the spill but he seems to be totally responsible for the lack of cleanup. We cannot forget that there are MILES of booms & skimmers available that would skim the oil off the water but OBAMA REFUSED TO USE THEM.
The Dutch were also going to give skimmers that could process over 5 million gallons a day but OBAMA REFUSED THEM TOO!!!
The question any sane person would ask is WHY? Perhaps George Sorros YMSH – who happens to own a lot of stock in a Brazilian oil company, & who controls those presidential puppet strings tell Obama to let this go out of control???
Midah K’neged Midah for all the Dem’s Bush- bashing over hurricane Katrina.
Good. Maybe we will merit having a candidate that has saichel, morals, and advisors who are not farkrumt with socialist agendas to vote into office.
Obama isn’t done yet. Watch his new blunders coming up.
He is toast, just not “well done” yet.
I think its as if the Iranian hostages happened in NYC on 9/11, while Katrina was blowing through New York at the same time. Yes, thats a good comparison.
Lets put this into perspective, no one lost their lives due to the oil spill, unlike those other disasters
Reply to #7 : 11 were killed in the explosion. Not Obamas fault though.
He blames Israel for something when Israel is not at fault–now the country will blame him for something he did not create and feels powerless to solve. He forcefully pressured Israel to stop building in order to appease Arabs & liberal Americans and to appear that he was doing something to bring mideast peace—-now he will feel the pressure to forcefully do something even if it will not solve the problem in the murky waters, and this time, while the Gulf situation remains the same or gets worse, he should suffer in proportion to how he made Israel suffer.
The difference between this and the hostage crisis or Katrina is that the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot by calling for MORE offshore drilling with LESS regulation!
Good I hope this finish Obama off one and for all I do hope he fails. The guy is a radical left wing ruining this country
Reply to all the comments so far. Does anyone realize that bashing obama is not the point? The issue is that as jews we should came about the destruction of lives and nature. Stop being so rightious about obama and pitch in yourself to fix the problem.
lets see action from this demagog obama. let him go back to…you know where….
he will wear a dark suit.
he will be in the oval office.
he will console the american piples.
he will not be believed (because he is all but powerful)
Obviously the American people do not believe in act of G-D.
They always need someone to blame.
Bush didn’t cause Katrina but America’s greed for oil has corrupted its morals, caused wars, loss of life and now humiliation.
BP is a major multi-national corporation. Their senior management could knock Mr. Obama into a corner with their eyes shut and one arm tied behind their back. Now is not the time but just wait till the fuss is over and watch them get their revenge on Mr. Obama.
Mr. President. You might take time to consider if this could be a message from above.
BP is handling their PR quite poorly. Yesterday I saw a BP ad that claimed that BP already paid over 18,000 claims totaling over $51 million. Only around $51 million paid so far????? I would have thought that at least $1 billion in compensation should have already been paid. I think BP has paid over $50 million just for their curerent ad campaign.
While the establishment of an independently managed fund to pay compensation to victims is a good idea, the president’s comments about BP seem unreasonably harsh. As others have said, this harsh rhetoric doesn’t seem like a good idea.