BP’s $20 Billion
Gail Collins, from the NY Times again, “He’d [Obama] barely finished his muted remarks on Tuesday before the House minority leader, John Boehner, accused him of exploiting the crisis “to impose a job-killing national energy tax on struggling families and small business.” Michael Steele, the Republican Party chairman, claimed that the president was “manipulating this tragic national crisis for selfish political gain.” And the ever-popular Representative Michele Bachmann denounced the BP restitution fund as “redistribution of wealth” and “one more gateway for government control.” Remember her? She’s the one that solved the healthcare crisis by telling people “to get a job with health insurance benefits”. I’ll bet those 40 or so million uninsured people had never thought of that. Back to Obama; I want to add my two cents; “I saw him walk on water and I’m now convinced that he can’t swim”. He just can’t seem to do anything right.
Current political wisdom? Be against everything. To be more specific, against everything that the Obama administration does.
I have been both Republican and Democrat in my lifetime. I don’t believe I can call myself either one at this point. I know, my Republican readers called me a liberal. My Democrat readers call me a conservative. My Tea Party friends call me a bleeding heart, tree hugging, ACLU loving, windbag. I call me “disgusted”. I can now write the next column, while quoting the Republican response to anything Obama does before they respond. That doesn’t make me smart. It makes them obvious.
I’ll give them credit for one thing; they “stay on message”. There are two reasons: they have a common theme and theirs is an easy message. “Disagree with anything Obama does, says, thinks or plans to think”. Don’t buff your fingernails Dems. You did the same thing when Bush was in office. Although I do agree that you were justified then.
Reading the political news isn’t very interesting any more for two reasons: it isn’t new(s) and I still believe in the old journalistic practice of keeping the news and opinions separated. But now the news only consists of two opposite “hyperbolic” political stances. It’s all opinion! Maybe we’re missing an opportunity here. News papers, blogs, websites could create a single page that looks like a multiple choice test. At the top of the page there could be a single sentence describing the “news” event. The rest of the page would have pre-printed Republican and Democrat responses on either side. The reader could just check off which responses they preferred. Think of the money the news companies could save on reporters salaries – and expenses – which I heard includes several multi-martini lunches per week. Don’t take offense. That’s just another old dying journalistic myth.
Ms. Collin’s column caught my attention because I had just watched a seven minute video segment from Fox News. No, I don’t watch Fox news. I saw this segment on the Internet. It was Bill O’Reilly pressing Sarah Palin for her suggestions. Something other than her incessant mindless yammering about Obama’s failure to handle the oil spill effectively. I admire Mr. O’Reilly for that segment. He accepted her criticisms objectively and insisted on hearing Ms. Palin’s constructive ideas. She didn’t have any. But I admire Ms. Palin too. She spoke for a full seven minutes, making one single point: “President Obama can’t do anything right”. Neither Mr. O’Reilly, nor I, heard a positive suggestion. I became suspicious. Do you think she had a political motivation? You betcha!
But there’s good news here. That segment gave me an idea about how to stop the leak in the Gulf. BP has tried various substances in their “kill shots”. They usually run out of whatever it is that they’re shooting down there. Why don’t they try something that has an endless supply – like Sarah Palin’s mindless yammering?
Robert DeFilippis
Current political wisdom? Be against everything. To be more specific, against everything that the Obama administration does.
I have been both Republican and Democrat in my lifetime. I don’t believe I can call myself either one at this point. I know, my Republican readers called me a liberal. My Democrat readers call me a conservative. My Tea Party friends call me a bleeding heart, tree hugging, ACLU loving, windbag. I call me “disgusted”. I can now write the next column, while quoting the Republican response to anything Obama does before they respond. That doesn’t make me smart. It makes them obvious.
I’ll give them credit for one thing; they “stay on message”. There are two reasons: they have a common theme and theirs is an easy message. “Disagree with anything Obama does, says, thinks or plans to think”. Don’t buff your fingernails Dems. You did the same thing when Bush was in office. Although I do agree that you were justified then.
Reading the political news isn’t very interesting any more for two reasons: it isn’t new(s) and I still believe in the old journalistic practice of keeping the news and opinions separated. But now the news only consists of two opposite “hyperbolic” political stances. It’s all opinion! Maybe we’re missing an opportunity here. News papers, blogs, websites could create a single page that looks like a multiple choice test. At the top of the page there could be a single sentence describing the “news” event. The rest of the page would have pre-printed Republican and Democrat responses on either side. The reader could just check off which responses they preferred. Think of the money the news companies could save on reporters salaries – and expenses – which I heard includes several multi-martini lunches per week. Don’t take offense. That’s just another old dying journalistic myth.
Ms. Collin’s column caught my attention because I had just watched a seven minute video segment from Fox News. No, I don’t watch Fox news. I saw this segment on the Internet. It was Bill O’Reilly pressing Sarah Palin for her suggestions. Something other than her incessant mindless yammering about Obama’s failure to handle the oil spill effectively. I admire Mr. O’Reilly for that segment. He accepted her criticisms objectively and insisted on hearing Ms. Palin’s constructive ideas. She didn’t have any. But I admire Ms. Palin too. She spoke for a full seven minutes, making one single point: “President Obama can’t do anything right”. Neither Mr. O’Reilly, nor I, heard a positive suggestion. I became suspicious. Do you think she had a political motivation? You betcha!
But there’s good news here. That segment gave me an idea about how to stop the leak in the Gulf. BP has tried various substances in their “kill shots”. They usually run out of whatever it is that they’re shooting down there. Why don’t they try something that has an endless supply – like Sarah Palin’s mindless yammering?
Robert DeFilippis
Hello Friend, Your article was great. I too feel the same that we are in a big mess based on what Obama has and has not done. Although I too am an independent, due to prior actions offormer presidents and as well the actions of Congress, especially now and the former Congressional actions. They do not have the citizens at heart, they have their own agendas and purposes. The actions I have personally taken is to get closer to GOD!, because we need him and his direction. Our country has forgoten him and I believe he is starting to get angry because of they way we are treating what he gave us. Look around at the seperate incidents throughout the world, floods, tornados,hurricanes, storms,now the BP disaster. As in acient times we too are a stiff necked people and look what God did to them!
ReplyDeleteI have been LMAO (laughing-- --off)reading your solution to the BP spill. Maybe we would not be in this mess if deregulation had not allowed such slipshod engineering by BP. I have a terrible imagination. I keep seeing O'Reilly being yammered to death by S.P. gasping for breath, struggling to find a point to hang on to. What a picture!
ReplyDelete