Fuschi’s Canadian Forum

Like some presidential version of Buford Pusser, Obama is “walking tall” with an axe handle clenched in his fist, looking for some “ass to kick”. If you have been catching the news you know that this is not a gratuitous embellishment of what he said. This is almost a direct quote. Unlike Buford Pusser, however, Mr. Obama is not targeting nasties who desperately need a good ass-kicking, but indulging in theatrics. He has as much chance of winning this ass-kicking contest, as a one-legged man.

 

I don’t have the technical expertise to know whether the BP event could have been avoided, or diminished or in any way improved from its current outcome. Even if Obama has access to that expertise, I believe it has nothing to do with his current grandstanding. That is a result of, first, his need to create the illusion of presidential action and control. Secondly, an ideological belief in the green salvation and the concurrent conviction that it is at hand. From that he has concluded that bridges with petroleum can now be burned without consequences.

 

Hence, his decree that offshore drilling is dead, the continued vilification of Canada’s tarsands, (will that change when Florida has their own?), the continued agitation for carbon charges, the hunt for BP heads, and so on. The man in charge of the most economically and militarily powerful nation on earth, - a statement that will cease to be true when the nation loses its reliable energy sources - is playing games with that nation’s energy future and reliability. He is theatrically swinging his stick at those who are responsible for ensuring the continuing ascendance of America.

 

Can he really believe that unproven, costly, unreliable, ephemeral, dreamland, alternative power sources, - whose accompanying unintended consequences, have barely been considered - are going to replace the energy gorilla that holds up the American pillars of support? If he does, conviction alone will not absolve him of the guilt of having destroyed one of the great nations of recorded history. Better that he is grandstanding, than that he actually believes. The former can be fixed with a simple kick in the ass or an election.