Pile Driver

Obama's getting dogpiled in the press.  And the people he's getting savaged by the most are on the left.

WaPo's Eugene Robinson:

Less than a minute into President Obama’s Oval Office address, my heart sank. For the umpteenth time since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began, an anxious nation was informed that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has a Nobel Prize. Obama’s speech pretty much went down hill from there.

MoJo's Kevin Drum:

What a terrible speech.

Unfair? Maybe! I mean, compared to Sarah Palin's (literally) incomprehensible burbling on Bill O'Reilly's show afterward it was a model of straight talk and reassurance. But that's a pretty low bar.

HuffPo's Jason Linkins:

I am really not entirely sure what the point to this Oval Office address was! Were you looking for something that resembled a fully-realized action plan, describing a detailed approach to containment and clean up? Or perhaps a definitive statement, severing the command and control that BP has largely enjoyed, in favor of a structured, centralized federal response? Maybe you were looking for a roadmap-slash-timetable for putting America on a path to a clean energy future? Well, this speech was none of those things.

WaPo's Ezra Klein:

The elements of Barack Obama's speech tonight that were specifically newsworthy were also broadly-expected: A liability fund that BP will pay into and that a third-party will distribute. A "long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan." Both ideas sound good. But their worth will be determined by, well, their worth. And Obama did not name any dollar amounts.

TNR's Jon Chait:

The portion of the speech detailing the government's response to the Deepwater Horizon spill seemed effective, as did his explanation of his plan to toughen regulations on offshore drilling. The important part of his speech concerned how we would wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. This portion revealed just how much Obama is operating from a position of weakness.

These are all people whose political opinion and analysis I respect, and to a man they dismissed this speech as weak, recycled crap that did nothing to help with any of the problems we have.

Which is exactly what the speech was.  Like I said, this isn't the Obama I voted for, and that guy needs to show the hell up and get his act together, pronto.  Obama had a golden opportunity to announce real support for climate legislation.  Instead he started out at his position of full compromise, an amendment to a bill dealing with the oil spill, as his entire environmental policy.

That's it.  Also, Dr. Steven Chu is smart.

That's his entire plan right now.  The escrow is helpful, and to be fair there's nothing much he can do about the spill...but by not going for it on climate legislation, and Obama starting out at his compromise position so that the Republicans can push things as far to the right as they can, he's really blown it.  It's a pattern with him, and one he needs to break.