In 1935 Sinclair Lewis published a political novel about a charismatic presidential candidate, Senator Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, with a gift of “orgasmic oratory” who runs on a populist/socialist platform and who promises to lead the country out of its current economic crisis if elected – which he is.
''I want to stand up on my hind legs,'' he writes in Zero Hour, his widely read pre-election book, ''and not just admit but frankly holler right out that...we've got to change our system a lot, maybe even change the whole Constitution (but change it legally, not by violence)....The Executive has got to have a freer hand and be able to move quick in an emergency, and not be tied down by dumb shyster lawyer congressmen taking months to shoot off their mouths in debates.''
Once in office, Windrip appoints his friends to high offices, his economic policies are a disaster, his numbers don’t add up, and his Supreme Court appointees are “surprisingly unknown lawyers.” He convinces Americans that a crisis is brewing in which “powerful and secret enemies of American principles” threaten their freedom and that they should “bear with him” as he deals with the crisis.
He demands that Congress amend the Constitution to give him “complete control of legislation and execution,” which Congress refuses to do, whereupon Windrip declares that a state of martial law exists during the “present crisis” and he orders the arrest of more than a hundred Congressmen. Step by step, President Windrip establishes himself with dictatorial power,
Lewis’ tale seems so far-fetched that we would say it can’t happen here, which happens to be the title of the book – It Can’t Happen Here.
Or could it, maybe in a different way?
A little-known bill, the benignly named “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act,” is being rushed through Congress which would put a kill switch in Obama’s hand if he declares a “national cyber-emergency.” At his sole discretion, Obama could disconnect private-sector computers, Internet service providers, and search engines from the web for up to 30 days.
Let’s think the worst, which is a good starting point when the federal government is involved. Critics of the bill say it is so broadly worded that Obama could use it for political purposes and to plug whistle-blowing websites like WikiLeaks. Recent crises show the Obama White House will push the Constitutional envelop in using executive power. What’s to prevent our thin-skinned president from silencing cyberspace criticism if this bill becomes law? We could be confronting the biggest threat to First Amendment rights since the Republic began.
After a year of study, the Obama FTC is recommending new taxes to help the struggling newspaper industry in the Internet age. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the print media is favorably disposed to Obama and the Democrats, whereas the Internet hosts bloviating bloggers (like me) who aren’t so friendly to them, would it? The FTC would like cell phone users to contribute 3% of their monthly cell phone bills and tax 5% of the purchases of computers, iPads and Kindles to help support newspapers and traditional journalism. Oh, and while they are at it, the Obama FTC wants to tax websites, like Drudge, because they get their headline links from the fossilizing print media. Is there a constitutional imprimatur for one free speech medium to subsidize a competitive medium?
George Bush’s unconstitutional $168 billion invasion of our private enterprise system got the Republicans so thoroughly thrown out of Congress that the survivors were too impotent in number to halt the $862 billion equally unconstitutional invasion launched by the Democrats. The Obama stimulus was supposed to keep unemployment below 8%. It is now 9.9% and has been above 10%. Not enough stimulus, says Obama, and asks for another $200 billion under the laughably titled “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act.” By reckless spending, Obama is shaping the lives of future generations – long after he is out of power as the chief executive.
By what constitutional authority did Obama fire the CEO of a private company – General Motors?
By what constitutional authority did Obama expropriate $20 billion from the shareholders of a foreign corporation – a matter that was indisputably in the purview of the American civil justice system? I’m not an apologist for British Petroleum or the other owners of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Their property damaged our property and they must set things as right as they can be set. But in a constitutional democracy there is a right way and lots of wrong ways to do things. Obama chose the wrong way. Was it to show that he was a tough guy or was it a brazen revelation of his ideology?
During the visit of Mexican President Calderón, Obama not only stood by as a foreign head of state criticized Arizona’s new immigration law, but also he agreed with him. Obama frequently forgets that he was elected to represent America to the rest of the world, and the belief that, paraphrasing the post-revolutionary naval hero, Stephen Decatur, “My country right or wrong, but my country” seems to stick in his craw. The Obama White House has now confirmed that it will sue Arizona for passing a law that is a clone of the unenforced federal immigration law. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week found that 58% of Americans support the Arizona measure, and 42% do so strongly. A Rasmussen poll shows 56% oppose the DOJ challenge while only 26% favor it. For whose benefit and on whose behalf is this federal lawsuit being filed?
When Obama was elected to bring “hope and change,” our country was strangling on Chicken Little economic hysterics and unemployment. Rather than focus on this, Obama tried to make the case that the real crisis was healthcare, squandering a year to force through an unpopular hijacking of the American healthcare system, a provision of which is a mandate that obligates free citizens to use their private funds to buy a product some are disinclined to buy. What language in the Constitution empowers the government to require this?
In Tuesday night’s oil spill speech, Obama chose the Oval Office for the first time since taking office. It has historically been the venue from which presidents make their most solemn pronouncements. Reagan used it to deliver his “touch the face of God” speech following the Challenger accident, Bush used it on the evening of the 9/11 attacks, and Nixon used it to announce his resignation – his 37th Oval Office speech.
Obama has a propensity to characterize certain events as a “crisis” in order to leverage his transformation of America into statist socialism, and his Tuesday night speech was no exception. His language was salted with martial synonyms descriptive of the struggle he sees himself called to lead – Obama Agonistes, Obama the Struggler. He spoke of “the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores” and promised that "we will fight this spill with everything we’ve got.” Warning that “there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done” he proceeded to “lay out for you what our battle plan is.”
Free societies are messy disorganized things. People are busy with their own lives, pursuing their own agendas, investing themselves in things that are important to them. The Struggler wants to change society because, in his view, the current status quo isn’t right. His task is to get citizens on a war footing, to support his vision for replacing their messy disorganized society with the superior society he has in mind, and – most importantly – the Struggler has to restrict their freedom to resist his purpose.
Too harsh? Paranoid maybe?
Let’s look at his oil spill speech. Of its almost 2,700 words, fully one-third of them – the final third – were devoted to his stalled cap and trade agenda. The “logic” or his argument was structured as a deductive syllogism intended to lead the audience from fact to fact to the “logical” conclusion that we should stop dithering and embrace “green”, to wit: “… this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced” AND “… for decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered … we have talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels … we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires” THEREFORE “the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.”
There isn’t space here to anatomize Obama’s specious argument, but the assertion that the days of cheap oil are numbered is conditionally false and his assertion that “… we consume more than 20% of the world’s oil, but have less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean – because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water” is patently false. There are 23 million acres in Alaska that the federal government has declared off limits and we have one of the longest coastlines of any country in the world. We have enough fossil fuel reserves to supply all of our needs for 200 years but environmentalists prevent access to them.
Images of the Deepwater Horizon spill will remain on TV screens for months. Rahm Emanuel’s infamous advice, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste – and what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before” has been served up in gift wrap. The spill will mobilize Obama’s congressional troopers and provide cover for them to ram through yet another costly and unpopular intrusion into the lives of Americans. A Harvard University study says the price of Obama’s ‘’green agenda” will be $7/gallon gas. Minority House Leader John Boehner revealed this week that the White House has told the Senate to resume work on the stalled cap and trade bill after the July 4 break and to be prepared to conference the bill in a lame duck session after the midterm elections. That means regardless of the gains Republicans may make in November, Democrats who lose their seats this fall will have one more chance to create Obama’s brave new world.
It can’t happen here? Well, it seems to be.
Showing posts with label oil spill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil spill. Show all posts
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Obama’s Effete Leadership
When Candidate Obama was selling himself to the electorate, he promised with King Canutian assurance a new era of “hope and change,” a post-partisan climate in Washington in which legislation would no longer be enacted by the power of the majority– certainly no more one-vote laws – that the "planet would begin to heal," and "the rise of the oceans begin to slow."
Bold talk for someone who has never held a private sector job, a “real” job in my opinion, or even a political position giving executive experience. Now, after nearly 18 months of President Obama’s brand of leadership, hopefully those who voted for a man who was to herald in this chimerical millennium have come to their senses and realized that, stentorian rhetoric aside, proven experience and leadership really do matter when it comes to occupying the highest office of the land.
A case in point …
On April 20 a wellhead explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killed eleven men and began spewing oil into the Gulf at a rate that was conservatively estimated at about 5,000 barrels a day. With the history of the Valdez oil spill and other spills around the world, one could reasonably expect that this would have piqued the attention of the people’s chief representative and leader in affairs of national interest. It didn’t.
As oil burbled 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf, Obama was flying back on April 20 from a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer. On Day Four of the developing crisis, April 23, the Obama family (including dog) took off for a three-day vacation in Asheville, NC to chomp on some ribs, play some golf, and get massaged at the Grove Park Resort. After hosting a White House reception for the NY Yankees on the 26th, eating a slice of rhubarb pie at Jerry’s Diner during a fundraiser in Iowa on the 27th, lunching at Peggy Sue’s Diner during another fundraiser in Missouri on the 28th, followed by another fundraiser at the “swank” Washington home of a DNC faithful on the 29th and a comedy routine with Jay Leno on May 1, Obama finally found time in his high priority schedule of play and politics to visit the Louisiana coast on May 2 – the 13th day of the crisis.
You’d think Obama was finally engaged in the unfolding disaster that could be his “Katrina” moment, but think again. Between Day 14 and Day 25, Obama would host the Navy football team and Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House, have private receptions for Nobel laureate Elie Weisel and Harmid Karzai, take Michelle on a date at the glitzy Komi restaurant in D.C., play an afternoon round of golf at Ft. Belvoir, and fly to another fundraiser in Buffalo with a side visit for hot wings at Duffs before he would find time to make a speech in the Rose Garden on May 14 to tell the American people what he was doing concerning the oil spill.
OK. Now he’s engaged. Not really. Another round of golf on the 15th and 16th (does this guy have time for the presidency?), a plant tour in Ohio during another fundraiser on the 18th, then the knock-your-socks-off state dinner for Mexican President Calderón on the 19th, followed by a White House meeting with rock star Bono (that’s surely an “A” priority), more golf on the 22nd at Andrews AF base outside of Washington (he must be trying to play every course in the area), another fundraiser in S.F. for Boxer hosted by the very rich and beautiful Getty family on the 25th, then skipping the Memorial Day tradition of wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown, off for another three-day weekend vacation in Chicagoland (the second in a little over a month) on the 27th, which he interrupts for part of the 28th for a photo op of him digging his finger in the sand of a Louisiana beach (what a guy) before heading back up to Chicagoland, BBQ and beers with Michelle on the 29th, then some pick-up basketball at the University of Chicago on the 30th.
June 1 (Day 43) OB hosts Sir Paul McCartney at a White House love fest where Paul (and Faith Hill, Jonas Brothers, Emmylou Harris, David Grohl, et. al.) serenaded the swooning Michelle (when you’re the president, nothing is too good for your sweetie) and Snookums Obama chortled that the Beatles “"helped to lay the soundtrack for an entire generation" (‘aw shucks). Thanking Obama and the event’s co-sponsor, the U.S. Library of Congress, McCartney couldn’t let it go without a dig: “After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.”
June 2 (Day 44) OB appears with the noted oil spill expert, Larry King, on “Larry King Live” and gave his best imitation of emotion. He said that he was “angry and frustrated” about the oil spill. Then asked how he felt about his job, OB said it is the best job on earth. (I can understand why – look at the perks.)
June 6 (Day 48) OB hosts a party at the White House and then shuffles off to Ford’s Theater with Michelle for an evening of laughs and music. No mention by the President or White House that it was the 66th anniversary of D-day.
June 7 (Day 49) OB addresses the graduating class of Kalamazoo Central High where he exhorts them to take responsibility for their successes and failures (now there’s a novel idea) and “when you screw up … it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Your professor was too hard; your boss was a jerk; the coach was playing favorites; your friend just didn’t understand. We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV.” (Well, he should know; he’s an expert at finger-pointing.)
June 8 (Day 50) OB is interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show where he makes a statement that will be remembered in his legacy. Asked about the panels of experts he had convened and the investigations he had commissioned, Obama snorted that he visited the Gulf a month ago to meet with fishermen before most media "talking heads" were paying attention to the issue and that, "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar; we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers — so I know whose ass to kick." I’m sure that threat sent shivers of fear down the spines of the BP execs.
How fitting that a President who speaks in gutter language would have an Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, threatening that the government would 'have its boot on the throat of BP.'" Coupled with the addiction to profanity of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Immanuel, these guys sound more like thugs than high government officials.
The fact is Obama began taking incoming fire from the press at least by May 30 when the NY Times criticized his lethargy in an editorial. The media that had adored Obama and deflected his incompetence in his handling of so many issues was now turning on him. The petulant Obama did what he has done ever since he became president and is criticized – he blames someone else and finger-points, not taking the advice he gave the Kalamazoo kids. In the financial meltdown, it was the fault of the “big banks,” in the healthcare crisis it was “big pharma” and the “big insurance” companies, and now it’s “big oil” and the greedy capitalist profit seeking companies like BP. Without any evidence of culpability, he accused the “oil industry’s cozy and sometimes corrupt relationship with government regulators” and how that has meant “little or no regulation at all.”
Releasing his DOJ goons, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that criminal and civil investigations had begun into the oil spill, threatening criminal prosecution if any environmental laws were found to have been violated. Wow! Under the Damoclean threat of incarceration, Obama’s leadership style certainly has a way of motivating folks to solve a problem getting worse by the day. He went on to warn the company execs to “make sure that BP is not lawyering up.” Obama ought to be happy BP stayed on the problem instead of leaving to focus on its legal liabilities.
Obama’s nemesis, Sarah Palin observed: “50 days in, and we’ve just learned another shocking revelation concerning the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf oil spill. In an interview aired this morning, President Obama admitted that he hasn’t met with or spoken directly to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward. His reasoning: ‘Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s gonna’ say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.’”
Years ago I gave a leadership speech entitled “The Power of Your Presence.” I subsequently turned it into an article and then into a chapter of a book I authored. The first principle of leadership, which Obama’s calendar shows he doesn’t get, is showing up! His phlegmatic leadership style is more akin to a head of state than presidential governing, which he willingly delegates to his co-prime ministers, Pelosi and Reid.
Another leadership principle that the vainglorious Obama doesn’t get is: never promise what you can’t personally deliver. Yet on May 28, feeling the heat of the media questioning his competence, Leader Obama confidently proclaimed "I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis…I am the president and the buck stops with me … the American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort… In case you're wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility." Poppycock! No leader worth his salt would put his personal reputation or that of his organization at risk by promising an outcome over which he has absolutely no power to deliver.
I’ll mention one other important principle of leadership that Obama doesn’t get: what’s done is done. The present state is the starting point for solving every problem – not who did what, not why or how something happened. Begin where you are. Solving a problem and diagnosing its cause are separate issues. Because Obama doesn’t get this principle either, he is as interested, if not more interested, in fixing blame than focusing all of the energy and resources he can muster to work along side of the BP experts (who are paralyzed in Admiral Thad Allen’s command structure) to minimize the irreparable damage that this catastrophe will cause. Culpability comes later. There will be plenty to go around in a fair hearing for both BP and the federal government, I’m sure.
As environmentalists have gained greater sway over U.S. federal policy and legislation, even reasonable land-based and coastal shelf drilling in 1,000 feet or less are not permitted. Oil companies therefore have been forced to drill farther out, in deeper waters, on more complex platforms, that maintain their position via global positioning satellites using on-board engines to offset ocean currents and wind.
Until the April 20 explosion hundreds of drilling platforms in the Gulf had experienced only one significant spill in more than 60 years, including many drilling in very deep water. Working on the bleeding edge of technology, this success in deepwater drilling obscured the omnipresent dangers, which led to overconfidence, which ultimately led to failure. Success and failure are always first cousins.
Something I ask the executive officers in our companies to address in their annual business plans is: “what can go wrong and what will you do if it happens?” It is the question Obama should have asked his direct reports … but didn’t.
Bold talk for someone who has never held a private sector job, a “real” job in my opinion, or even a political position giving executive experience. Now, after nearly 18 months of President Obama’s brand of leadership, hopefully those who voted for a man who was to herald in this chimerical millennium have come to their senses and realized that, stentorian rhetoric aside, proven experience and leadership really do matter when it comes to occupying the highest office of the land.
A case in point …
On April 20 a wellhead explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killed eleven men and began spewing oil into the Gulf at a rate that was conservatively estimated at about 5,000 barrels a day. With the history of the Valdez oil spill and other spills around the world, one could reasonably expect that this would have piqued the attention of the people’s chief representative and leader in affairs of national interest. It didn’t.
As oil burbled 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf, Obama was flying back on April 20 from a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer. On Day Four of the developing crisis, April 23, the Obama family (including dog) took off for a three-day vacation in Asheville, NC to chomp on some ribs, play some golf, and get massaged at the Grove Park Resort. After hosting a White House reception for the NY Yankees on the 26th, eating a slice of rhubarb pie at Jerry’s Diner during a fundraiser in Iowa on the 27th, lunching at Peggy Sue’s Diner during another fundraiser in Missouri on the 28th, followed by another fundraiser at the “swank” Washington home of a DNC faithful on the 29th and a comedy routine with Jay Leno on May 1, Obama finally found time in his high priority schedule of play and politics to visit the Louisiana coast on May 2 – the 13th day of the crisis.
You’d think Obama was finally engaged in the unfolding disaster that could be his “Katrina” moment, but think again. Between Day 14 and Day 25, Obama would host the Navy football team and Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House, have private receptions for Nobel laureate Elie Weisel and Harmid Karzai, take Michelle on a date at the glitzy Komi restaurant in D.C., play an afternoon round of golf at Ft. Belvoir, and fly to another fundraiser in Buffalo with a side visit for hot wings at Duffs before he would find time to make a speech in the Rose Garden on May 14 to tell the American people what he was doing concerning the oil spill.
OK. Now he’s engaged. Not really. Another round of golf on the 15th and 16th (does this guy have time for the presidency?), a plant tour in Ohio during another fundraiser on the 18th, then the knock-your-socks-off state dinner for Mexican President Calderón on the 19th, followed by a White House meeting with rock star Bono (that’s surely an “A” priority), more golf on the 22nd at Andrews AF base outside of Washington (he must be trying to play every course in the area), another fundraiser in S.F. for Boxer hosted by the very rich and beautiful Getty family on the 25th, then skipping the Memorial Day tradition of wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown, off for another three-day weekend vacation in Chicagoland (the second in a little over a month) on the 27th, which he interrupts for part of the 28th for a photo op of him digging his finger in the sand of a Louisiana beach (what a guy) before heading back up to Chicagoland, BBQ and beers with Michelle on the 29th, then some pick-up basketball at the University of Chicago on the 30th.
June 1 (Day 43) OB hosts Sir Paul McCartney at a White House love fest where Paul (and Faith Hill, Jonas Brothers, Emmylou Harris, David Grohl, et. al.) serenaded the swooning Michelle (when you’re the president, nothing is too good for your sweetie) and Snookums Obama chortled that the Beatles “"helped to lay the soundtrack for an entire generation" (‘aw shucks). Thanking Obama and the event’s co-sponsor, the U.S. Library of Congress, McCartney couldn’t let it go without a dig: “After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.”
June 2 (Day 44) OB appears with the noted oil spill expert, Larry King, on “Larry King Live” and gave his best imitation of emotion. He said that he was “angry and frustrated” about the oil spill. Then asked how he felt about his job, OB said it is the best job on earth. (I can understand why – look at the perks.)
June 6 (Day 48) OB hosts a party at the White House and then shuffles off to Ford’s Theater with Michelle for an evening of laughs and music. No mention by the President or White House that it was the 66th anniversary of D-day.
June 7 (Day 49) OB addresses the graduating class of Kalamazoo Central High where he exhorts them to take responsibility for their successes and failures (now there’s a novel idea) and “when you screw up … it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Your professor was too hard; your boss was a jerk; the coach was playing favorites; your friend just didn’t understand. We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV.” (Well, he should know; he’s an expert at finger-pointing.)
June 8 (Day 50) OB is interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show where he makes a statement that will be remembered in his legacy. Asked about the panels of experts he had convened and the investigations he had commissioned, Obama snorted that he visited the Gulf a month ago to meet with fishermen before most media "talking heads" were paying attention to the issue and that, "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar; we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers — so I know whose ass to kick." I’m sure that threat sent shivers of fear down the spines of the BP execs.
How fitting that a President who speaks in gutter language would have an Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, threatening that the government would 'have its boot on the throat of BP.'" Coupled with the addiction to profanity of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Immanuel, these guys sound more like thugs than high government officials.
The fact is Obama began taking incoming fire from the press at least by May 30 when the NY Times criticized his lethargy in an editorial. The media that had adored Obama and deflected his incompetence in his handling of so many issues was now turning on him. The petulant Obama did what he has done ever since he became president and is criticized – he blames someone else and finger-points, not taking the advice he gave the Kalamazoo kids. In the financial meltdown, it was the fault of the “big banks,” in the healthcare crisis it was “big pharma” and the “big insurance” companies, and now it’s “big oil” and the greedy capitalist profit seeking companies like BP. Without any evidence of culpability, he accused the “oil industry’s cozy and sometimes corrupt relationship with government regulators” and how that has meant “little or no regulation at all.”
Releasing his DOJ goons, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that criminal and civil investigations had begun into the oil spill, threatening criminal prosecution if any environmental laws were found to have been violated. Wow! Under the Damoclean threat of incarceration, Obama’s leadership style certainly has a way of motivating folks to solve a problem getting worse by the day. He went on to warn the company execs to “make sure that BP is not lawyering up.” Obama ought to be happy BP stayed on the problem instead of leaving to focus on its legal liabilities.
Obama’s nemesis, Sarah Palin observed: “50 days in, and we’ve just learned another shocking revelation concerning the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf oil spill. In an interview aired this morning, President Obama admitted that he hasn’t met with or spoken directly to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward. His reasoning: ‘Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s gonna’ say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.’”
Years ago I gave a leadership speech entitled “The Power of Your Presence.” I subsequently turned it into an article and then into a chapter of a book I authored. The first principle of leadership, which Obama’s calendar shows he doesn’t get, is showing up! His phlegmatic leadership style is more akin to a head of state than presidential governing, which he willingly delegates to his co-prime ministers, Pelosi and Reid.
Another leadership principle that the vainglorious Obama doesn’t get is: never promise what you can’t personally deliver. Yet on May 28, feeling the heat of the media questioning his competence, Leader Obama confidently proclaimed "I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis…I am the president and the buck stops with me … the American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort… In case you're wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility." Poppycock! No leader worth his salt would put his personal reputation or that of his organization at risk by promising an outcome over which he has absolutely no power to deliver.
I’ll mention one other important principle of leadership that Obama doesn’t get: what’s done is done. The present state is the starting point for solving every problem – not who did what, not why or how something happened. Begin where you are. Solving a problem and diagnosing its cause are separate issues. Because Obama doesn’t get this principle either, he is as interested, if not more interested, in fixing blame than focusing all of the energy and resources he can muster to work along side of the BP experts (who are paralyzed in Admiral Thad Allen’s command structure) to minimize the irreparable damage that this catastrophe will cause. Culpability comes later. There will be plenty to go around in a fair hearing for both BP and the federal government, I’m sure.
As environmentalists have gained greater sway over U.S. federal policy and legislation, even reasonable land-based and coastal shelf drilling in 1,000 feet or less are not permitted. Oil companies therefore have been forced to drill farther out, in deeper waters, on more complex platforms, that maintain their position via global positioning satellites using on-board engines to offset ocean currents and wind.
Until the April 20 explosion hundreds of drilling platforms in the Gulf had experienced only one significant spill in more than 60 years, including many drilling in very deep water. Working on the bleeding edge of technology, this success in deepwater drilling obscured the omnipresent dangers, which led to overconfidence, which ultimately led to failure. Success and failure are always first cousins.
Something I ask the executive officers in our companies to address in their annual business plans is: “what can go wrong and what will you do if it happens?” It is the question Obama should have asked his direct reports … but didn’t.
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