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June 8, 2010 in Opinion
Froma Harrop: Odds go to Obama’s experts
Gulf Coast residents are supposedly mad at President Barack Obama for not keeping the oil from threatening their beaches and marshes. We hear this in stereo – from political opposition on the right and liberal pundits bored by the president’s cerebral approach to problem-solving.
Stopping the waves is a job for Neptune, not a president. Obama cannot raise his trident and force the oil back into the hole. There are things he can do, but they’re a lot less impressive.
Granted, Obama’s early campaign for president cultivated a myth of his godlike powers. And some still seem to buy into the magic narrative. Columnist Maureen Dowd writes that “Barack Obama is a guy who is accustomed to having stuff go right for him.” Sunday talk show panelists repeated this idea, followed by “and now look what’s happening to him”: A vast oil spill brings disaster in the gulf. Israel complicates Mideast diplomacy by killing would-be blockade breakers. The new job numbers are lousy.
With all due respect to colleagues, these things aren’t happening to Obama. They are happening to the world. Obama’s vaunted “good luck” was in campaign politics, a far smaller and more manageable stage than he’s playing on today. There has never been a time in world history when stuff wasn’t happening.
No, his stimulus didn’t end the scourge of high unemployment. That is a long-term and structural challenge, made tougher by the recent recession. No one is going to cheer a 9.7 percent jobless rate, even if it was a tad below April’s. But one can argue that it might have gone a lot higher without the stimulus.
Obama’s critics can rationally blame him for announcing plans to expand offshore drilling – especially before cleaning up the sex-addled Minerals Management Service, which is supposed to regulate the industry. But they can’t ask, as some on the right have, why Obama hasn’t managed to stop the crisis a mile underwater. Or, as the left asks, why the administration put faith in BP’s early reports about the blowout. The answer to both questions is that BP is there, a mile below the surface, and the U.S. government is not.
The proper government response? Do what is humanly possible to keep the oil from shore, as BP fixes the well. The administration is doing that. It has also reversed plans on expanding offshore drilling, pending an investigation of what went wrong.
But on the left, Atlantic writer Joshua Green criticizes Obama for “his abiding faith in the judgment of experts.” Columnist Frank Rich agrees: Whether the subject is the oil spill or the troubled campaign in Afghanistan or even divining future unemployment rates, Obama has erred by relying on experts. Solving these problems “may be beyond the reach of marathon brainstorming by brainiacs,” Rich writes, “even if the energy secretary is a Nobel laureate.”
Fine. That the best and the brightest can get it wrong is not quite news. But if not experts, to whom should Obama listen? Should he check the horoscope or take his troubles down to Madame Ruth? If the experts aren’t performing as desired, he can find different experts.
For my taxpayer dollar, I’d prefer a calm leader who works with the most respectable opinions he can find. Some of the worst Obama decisions – going passive during the health care ruckus and pushing for new offshore drilling – came not from listening to science, economic and military experts, but his political advisers.
In dealing with “stuff,” Obama does not make the grade as a god. But as an intelligent human being playing a tough hand of cards, he’s not been that bad.
Froma Harrop is a columnist for the Providence Journal.
Editorial: Workers’ beer routine undermines public trust 
EdnaNode on June 08 at 10:00 a.m.
Froma:
To err is human by definition; gods being gods are incapable of errors and therefore are capable of inhumane actions….
What you see as god like in Obama; I see as arrogant and ignorant in an absurd duet that has cost people their livelihoods and has hurt the environment through unadulterated vacillation.
For whom the gods wish to humble Froma, they first make proud… Prideful Mr. Obama had no problem trying to look like a Greek god in 2008. In 2010 he looks a lot more human…even somewhat sophomoric….
JBlim on June 08 at 6:35 p.m.
Yeah, try to blame Obama … Obviously the blame goes to all the anti-regulation, anti-environment conservatives and reckless corner cutters in big business who never gave a serious thought to the worst case scenario. Blame also goes to wimpy Democrats who won’t stand up for the environment because of all the cry baby Republicans. Maybe now we can get some decent regulations in place so that businesses that actually do want to do the right thing won’t be driven out of business by the scumbag profiteers.
EdnaNode on June 08 at 7:33 p.m.
Jblim Jblim you’re off point, yet again
Did you even read what Froma Harrop penned?
It’s Obama’s rep she wants to commend
It was his own campaign that cried AMEN
Not the GOP so don’t you pretend
The buck stops with Obama in the end.
misjustice on June 08 at 8:05 p.m.
I suggest renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Cheney; as it was him and his secret panel of big bidness execs that penned the Energy Policy which allowed BP to cut corners and self-regulate.
The ONLY good thing to come from the oil volcano is that it has shut Cheney up; he most likely fears indictment!
JBlim on June 08 at 8:09 p.m.
matt monroe, you don’t get it again. I was responding to your dribble. “Obama trying to look like a Greek god,” gimme a break.
EdnaNode on June 10 at 5:11 a.m.
JBlim:
Where were you in August 2008? I didn’t make the greek god thingy up; the Obama campaign did the visual, not me…
Perhaps you have selective memory, but I recall the DNC floating the godish themes in 2008; even being bold enough to call the junior senator from Illinois and the least experienced man ever elected to the Presidency of the United States the messiah…
Like you I am applaud by the DNC and Obama;s arrogance. What I find so pathetic are the liberal lemming lackeys like Froma Harrop trying to positively spin what is evidently the inexperience chickens coming home to roost…
misjustice on June 10 at 1:41 p.m.
matty; only loonie tunes like you and the Becker Heads refer to the POTUS in such terms, oh and Rush Limpballs too…
EdnaNode on June 10 at 3:14 p.m.
Misjustice:
When you must resort to name calling, your argument is weak….
Trying to associate me with folks you with whom you disagree and referencing them with a vulgar bastardization of their names is in no way persuasive or even remotely clever.
It is a method employed by ill-mannered elementary school children when they lack the cerebral horsepower to defend their position in a debate.
Counter my arguments, or concede the point…
JBlim on June 10 at 6:53 p.m.
matt monroe:
All you do is parrot garbage from Rush Limbaugh and Hannity. Seriously, get a life.
mmspowaus on June 11 at 5:25 a.m.
Jblim:
One thing I find odd is that you think my material is just “parroting Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hannity” Although I’ve heard them before, due to my life schedule I am not a frequent listener. (I listen to NPR more…) If they have the same conclusions as yours truly, this can only mean one of two things:
A) The conclusions are obvious and accurate
B) I need a national radio show.
I mean Limbaugh and Hannity are heard by millions every day and have a staff of people giving them material. I’m just humble little me and have come up with the same deadly accurate arguments.
Wow
Another odd thing is this: how would you know if I parrot Limbaugh and Hannity as you suggest; unless you listen to them??????
The faults we first think we see in others we know to be true in ourselves….wouldn’t you agree?
As for your usage of the phrase “you need to get a life”
My, isn’t that expression shopworn…Maybe you should take your own “life” advice…and stop watching 1970 sitcom reruns….
JBlim on June 11 at 6:06 a.m.
Matt Monroe:
You said: “The faults we first think we see in others we know to be true in ourselves….wouldn’t you agree?”
Sorry if I have offended thee!
You must think yourself a Greek god then, right? And, you also think you’re the messiah! I always knew there was something really weird about you.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to Leave it to Beaver . . .