The Obnoxious Backlash Against Obama

The BP oil spill is the worst environmental disaster this country's ever suffered. And the talking heads on the 24-hour news cycle have been harshly criticizing President Obama—before and after his presidential address last week. And these are the liberal talking heads.

He's not emotional enough. He's not angry enough. He should be getting his picture taken at the site of the spill, personally tending to the clean-up.

What level of public theater does this country really fucking need?

Excerpt from this SLATE article titled "Presidential Anger Management":

While no one has yet discovered a way to plug the BP oil leak, each day does bring the discovery of yet another fundamental character defect that explains President Obama's helplessness. He's not emotional enough. He lacks crisis experience. He is insufficiently creative. With the leak likely to last into the summer, before long it will be blamed on Obama's bad penmanship or his skinny legs.

The one question we'll always be able to ask, fortunately, is whether the president is sufficiently angry. In the daily temperature reading that has become the White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs once again addressed the president's temper. "Our point is not to feign, through method acting, anger at what environmental and economic damage has been wrought by this disaster. That wasn't going to fill a hole. That wasn't going to put money in the bank account of a shrimper that's not fishing. That's not going to help a hotel worker or a hotel owner on a beach in Florida."

It's really discouraging to me how much hand-holding the general public seems to demand.

Excerpt from a GAWKER article posted after the presidential address:

But what of today's White House agreement with BP for it to set up a $20 billion, independent escrow fund to pay claims, cancel its dividends for at least the rest of 2010, and set up another fund compensating oil workers for lost wages? (And that $20 billion is not a cap, either — it can, and probably will, go up.) Those seem like pretty strong results and displays of leadership! BP probably wouldn't have conceded its hand like this, either, if it thought the White House wouldn't try more aggressive legal ways of getting them to pay up were they to refuse.

This fund is going to help many, many people along the Gulf Coast, immediately. That doesn't change the fact that Barack Obama doesn't "act angrily," like a clown, for the personal amusement of pundits, but it's something.

This just in:

Obama To Make Reassuring Eye Contact With Every Last American.