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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Snakebit, Peggy?

Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, says that "President Obama is Snakebit".  Peggy Noonan is an informed observer and there is that saying attributed to Curtis LeMay:  "I can not distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent and therefore will not try".

On the other hand, the President did manage to lead the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to pass a whopping big stimulus package and a major overhaul of health care insurance.  So he isn't doing that bad.  The Gulf Oil Spill, like Katrina, is a "Black Swan" event.  While the knock on George Bush was that the Federal Government did not respond soon enough to the inability of local and state authorities to do what was needed, the problem now seems to be that the Federal Government keeps getting in the way of state government trying to do its duty.

Then there is the view of Joy McCann, from Whittier, Little Miss Atilla, posted here.

I think this is all a tempest in a tea pot.  While I am not a big fan of the President and his way of doing business, now is not the time to pile on.  We have a number of major problems we are facing, including the oil spill.  We need a heck of a lot of constructive criticism at this point.  Calling the President "snakebit" isn't helpful.  On the other hand, this Gulf Oil Spill problem is, in a way, a problem of our own making.  We should have been working on this from the oil embargo in the early 1970s.  And I don't mean "cap and trade".  I mean alternative sources of energy, like wind and nuclear.  I mean smart efficiency in a lot of areas, including automobiles.  And, drilling for oil in places that make more sense than a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico.  And working on our electric transmission infrastructure.  All are to blame.  Now we are just reaping what we previously sowed.

UPDATE:  I provided a link to "Black Swan Events" on Wikipedia.

Regards  —  Cliff

  The General, not the Mayor.

PS:  Hat tip to Instapundit

2 comments:

ncrossland said...

I am not at all convinced that Obama actually "led" anything in the recent legislative largesse of near logrithmic proportions. If anyone gets the credit for the current multigenerational debt burden, it is Pelosi and Reid, aided and abetted by some of the most left leaning scoundrels that have ever populated the granite halls of the Capitol building.

That Obama is a pseudo-intellectual blowhard (there is absolutely NO documented evidence that he has accomplished any scholarly goals or other major markers of high intellect). That he is a smooth talking huckster backed by a corps of back alley muscle is undeniable. He panders to a population obsessed with free lunches and a life full of ease because Big Brother will haul you up to new heights "even if we don't know quite what those heights will look like....or how we'll get there."

One gets snakebit because one insists on walking where the snakes reside, and doing so with the belief that the snakes won't dare bite. Anyone with experience and knowledge avoids those catastrophies because they know where to look, where to step, and what to avoid.

W/r to the Black Swan event, it would be grossly unfair to lay this one on Obumble. There is a host of more deserving recipients of that recognition beginning with the earth loving, people hating environmental loonies who have been instrumental in driving oil exploration into the deep end, a place where seasoned engineers fear to tread. In so many ways, BP is just a deer in the headlights....and the rest of the herd is still out there doing what deer do.

Alternative sources of energy have been a political mantra since I graduated from high school, but it is political poison on a number of fronts, not the least of which have been fueled (pun intended) by not only Big Oil but their lubricating investors...many of whom occupy high government places) and Big Auto and Big Banking. None of that has changed and won't change anytime soon. We live in a precarious energy grid that is subject to the whims of international relations, political ineptitude, and the pernicious predations of foreign "entities" who wish to do us harm...now...or when the time is better.

The Black Swan event....and the host of idiots who have joined in the dark drama that just keeps on thrilling us all.....is an "attractive hazard" in that it focuses attention on it alone, thus diverting energy from discovering, analyzing, and fixing the much larger overarching problems that got us to the Event to begin with. Americans feel that if we can attach a label, name a bad guy, condemn a process, and adopt a new process or legislative fiat, everything will be fine. But it won't...because we still believe in the free lunch, the one time special good deal, and that just this one time, if it seems to be too good to be true....it is good none-the-less.

Marie said...

Cliff - FYI - "Our" Curtis LeMay was a Lowell City Councilor in the early 1990s - it was his father - Armand W. LeMay who was both a City Councilor (1968-1988)and Mayor of Lowell in the mid 1970s.