Written by Danielle Belton
Tuesday, 08 June 2010 00:00
President Obama rarely gets pissed. He's pretty unflappable. He was like that as a Senator. He was like that on the campaign trail. He doesn't get "visibly" angry. He doesn't necessarily get super excited either. He's just mellow yellow, all the time. This, apparently, bothers some. Especially when it comes to the BP oil spill in the Gulf.
The oil spill is an environmental and economical nightmare. British Petroleum, aka BP, aka owners of the oil rig ruining lives and who are technically the experts in this case, have no clue on how to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The leak has turned into the worst environmental disaster in decades, far out-pacing the last horrid oil spill involving the Exxon Vadez. The government has no clue of how to stop it either as ... they're the government. They don't drill oil for a living. Nancy Pelosi didn't spend her youth on a rig. And John Conyers doesn't have an engineering degree. They just collect the taxes on it. They also kind of half-ass regulate it, but that's been an issue for the span of several presidencies. Especially in this age of super powerful mega lobbies and at least one political party that loathes even the notion of federal regulation. (Cough, GOP! Cough) The other party just likes money.
Actually, they both like money, so never mind.
Naturally, everyone from Maureen Dowd to James Carville to Spike Lee to Bill Maher to just folks on the street, want to see the President get mad. We're mad, after all. The people who live and work near the Gulf are mad. The environmentalists are mad. Everyday taxpayers are mad. Politicians are mad. Why won't the President render his garments, turn into The Incredible Hulk and lay waste to some BP sucker fools?
Easy. That's not the guy we elected.
There was a moment a few months ago when I was chatting to a friend who was very disappointed in the Obama Presidency so far. She, for some reason, had been operating under the mistaken belief that Barack Obama had come to Washington to exact revenge for the sins of the Bush Administration. I reminded her that on his list of campaign promises "revenge" was not listed. Obama doesn't even have a personal reputation of being vengeful. He was considered to be a "reconciler." Someone who would bring everyone to the table, be thoughtful and hammer out an even decision. I told her that if she had wanted another REVENGE President she should have voted Clinton in the primary.
She told me she didn't WANT to vote Hillary Clinton. She hated that woman. So I reminded her that you can't act surprised that Obama didn't turn into Conan the Democratic Barbarian (no matter what the Tea Partiers say). He never sold himself as that. Hell, during the primaries he wouldn't even get mad at or directly attack Clinton and she was SCREAMING for a fight. (As you may recall that was fornicator John Edwards' job.) Obama was your avuncular adjudicator trying to find that happy medium. Not Godzilla. There was a REASON everyone voted for him and it was because he wouldn't get all hot-headed and make rash decisions and go blow something up before asking questions first.
Yeah. It's fun to watch someone in power that you like get medieval on someone. I know I always had a big hoot n' holler whenever former President Bill Clinton dragged out that crooked finger and got straight down to business. Lots of conservatives LOVED it when former President Bush got cocky and defensive and shut people down with degrading nicknames and a smirk. (Of course, I didn't like it. But I didn't vote for the man.)
We've had presidents who kicked, pushed, shoved and verbally slapped down people. But remember? Remember how everyone was all high on the notion of an "adult" being president who wouldn't flip into some frothy rage at the drop of a hat? Someone who would be more of a doer than a talker? After all, screaming at Hurricane Katrina wouldn't have saved the people of New Orleans. They wanted action (and to not die in the Superdome). Even if Bush had immediately gone to New Orleans, unless he came strapped with water, food, the Spanish Armada and the National Guard, smirking at the flood that came after the hurricane and calling it "Floody" or "Son of a bitch" wouldn't have been very productive. A nice gesture, but not productive.
What people should care about is whether or not the President is DOING something about the oil spill. As I said earlier, the President is in charge of our government and our government don't know nuttin' about pluggin' no oil spills. Obama is not an executive with BP. He did not list "drilling for oil in the depths of the ocean" on his resume. The "experts" on off-shore oil drilling are the friggin' oil companies who spent a WHOLE LOTTA MONEY to keep the government from closely regulating them. And if BP and other oil companies don't know how to fix that leak NO ONE DOES. I hate to be the harbinger of doom, but if they can't fix it, we are all just screwed. For five minutes the government actually considered letting BP use a nuclear warhead on the thing. A NUCLEAR WARHEAD! Does that sound like anyone knows what to do? Yelling at BP might feel wonderful. Hell, I'd like to see someone take a punch to the face and go to prison, but at the end of the day, there's still a hole in the Gulf of Mexico eating your entire ecosystem and turning it into a dead zone.
The President could yell at it. I, personally, wish he'd use this as an example of WHY businesses need to be regulated and why off-shore drilling is not a viable solution to America's energy woes. (But, per usual, he's playing from the middle again as it WAS one of his campaign semi-promises to allow off-shore drilling. But shit, would it kill him to reconsider?) This black hole of death will still be spouting oil even if the President delivers the most excellent, beautiful, smack-downing-est, tersely worded speech ever (featuring lots of curse words!), so ... enjoy your good ol' fashion yell time. The Gulf should be dead by the time the speech ends.
Danielle Belton is a writer and freelancer whose works have appeared in The Huffington Post, The American Prospect and Essence Online. She is the author of the blog: http://blacksnob.com/
Monday 06 February 2012
