Hurricanes happen. Oil spills are NOT so unavoidable. Cost-cutting in safety and prevention infrastructure, exacerbated by human negligence and poor protocols, are corporate choices, not “acts of God.”

The human cost of hurricane Katrina in lost lives and property was almost entirely the fault of the Democratic administrations of the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. Both jurisdictions failed to implement their carefully planned hurricane response procedures until it was too late, even though there would have been plenty of time to save their constituents. Despite this obvious truth, Democrats and their media lackeys were quick to blame the disaster on the Republican president George W. Bush.

Now a catastrophic oil spill has been polluting the Gulf of Mexico since April 20th, well over one month, and the current Democratic president has done NOTHING. But only now are some Democrats and media figures beginning to criticize his failure to act.

Last Thursday, native Louisiana son James Carville lamented Obama’s inaction to CNN’s Anderson Cooper:

I’m as good a Democrat as most people, and I think this administration has done some good things. They are risking everything by this ‘go along with BP’ strategy they have that seems like, lackadaisical on this, … they seem like they’re inconvenienced by this, this is some giant thing getting in their way and somehow or another, if you let BP handle it, it’ll all go away. It’s not going away. It’s growing out there. It is a disaster of the first magnitude….

Also last week, Chris Matthews appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and expressed disappointment with Obama’s lack of leadership:

The president scares me. He’s been acting a little like a Vatican Observer. When is he actually going to do something?

And I worry. I know he doesn’t want to take ownership of it. I know the politics. Because the minute he says I’m in charge, then he’s blamed. But somebody’s got to take charge.

On Sunday morning, ABC’s This Week brought more Obama disapprovals. From Cokie Roberts:

The oil is gushing and we’re being lied to by how much oil is gushing … and the administration has now named a commission. Now this is what you do when you really don’t have anything else to do: You name a commission. That’s not going to stop the oil.

And from Democrat strategist Donna Brazile:

One of the problems I have with the administration is that they’re not tough enough. They are waiting for BP to say, ‘Oh we have a new plan to stop the oil leak.’ They need to stop it, contain it, clean it up and try and help us conserve our coastal wetlands.

Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs is struggling to deflect the blame. According to the Huffington Post:

The tensions peaked during the daily press briefing at the White House on Friday when Gibbs was repeatedly questioned as to what, exactly, the administration was doing to help with the catastrophic spill. The line of inquiry grew so contentious that Gibbs ended up calling reporters after the briefing finished to ask them about their tone.

In this time of high unemployment, the damage to the fishing and tourism industries is especially hurtful. Yet the Obama administration is focused on saving its political reputation, and not on soving the problem.

The situation here is that Barack Obama had no executive experience before taking on the management of this country. Zip. Nada. Not even a MacDonald’s franchise. By contrast, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is showing real leadership. Despite not having the requested federal approval, he plans to go ahead with construction of sand booms to block the oil offshore:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said the state will not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Oil has pushed at least 12 miles into Louisiana’s marshes, with two major pelican rookeries awash in crude….

The governor said he has been forced to protect Louisiana without the approval of the Army Corps of Engineers, which is weighing the ecological impact of the construction of more sand booms. “We are not waiting for them. We are going to build it,” Jindal said.

“….we can fight this oil … on the Barrier Islands 15 to 20 miles off of our coast, or we can face it in thousands of miles of fragmented wetlands,” Gov. Jindal said… “Every day we’re not given approval on this emergency permit to create more of these sand booms is another day when that choice is made for us, as more and more miles of our shore are hit by oil.”

So there you have it. Obama’s lack of leadership in stark contrast to Jindal’s decisive action.

One more note for those who care about the environment — for one month this administration has allowed British Petroleum to use a toxic chemical as an oil dispersant, one that “may cause lasting damage to coastal ecosystems.”

Related:

Michelle Malkin — Louisana Gov. Jindal blasts Obama inaction, moves on sand booms

Hewitt Blog — Obama’s Oily Beaches and Wetlands

Los Angeles Times — White House slammed for oil spill — Obama’s Katrina?

Right Pundits — Sarah Palin Slams Obama, Gulf Oil Spill Enters Fifth Week

Obama has apparently violated an FBI ban on release of security information to save his own face. He lost a ton of credibility when the Christmas bomber was mirandized in the middle of a valuable information dump and clammed up.

Later, the FBI got the fellow talking again, revealing the details of upcoming attacks on US targets in country and abroad. But the fact that the terrorist was once more spilling his guts was supposed to be kept under wraps, at the specific mandate of the FBI director (and, we should add, as standard operating procedure).

But the Obama team released that information to reporters. It looks like an intentional and knowing breach of security intended to help the President save face for his earlier blunder. As in, OK, so he made a big mistake, but in the long run it didn’t make any difference.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Vice Chairman of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, fired off a letter to Obama today:

….In the realm of national security, sometimes it is necessary to withhold critical information from the public that may be used by our enemies to harm the American people.

Accordingly, I am deeply disturbed with the official handling of vital national security information regarding the recent cooperation by the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab. On Monday afternoon, the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee received notification from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning Abdulmutallab’s recent willingness to provide critical information. FBI officials stressed the importance of not disclosing the fact of his cooperation in order to protect on-going and follow-on operations to neutralize additional threats to the American public; FBI Director Bob Mueller personally stressed to me that keeping the fact of his cooperation quiet was vital to preventing future attacks against the United States. Handling this information in such a sensitive manner struck me as entirely appropriate.

Twenty-four hours later, however, White House staff assembled members of the media to announce Abdulmutallab’s cooperation and to laud the events that led to his decision to cooperate with law enforcement personnel. This information immediately hit the air waves globally and, no doubt, reached the ears of our enemies abroad.

At the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Annual World Wide Threats Hearing Tuesday, the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI Director, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency all stated they believe terrorists will attempt another attack on America within the next few months. I cannot understand, Mr. President, why the sudden cooperation by Abdulmutallab would be broadcast publicly to the media in detail when your intelligence chiefs are unanimously warning that another attack on our country is imminent. The release of this sensitive information has no doubt been helpful to his terrorist cohorts around the world.

It is deeply disturbing to me that the Intelligence Committee would be advised of sensitive information, and told of the vital imperative to keep such information secret for the sake of national security, only to see this information – less than twenty-four hours later –broadcast to the world from the White House. This distortion of the congressional notification process suggests that other considerations are taking precedence over keeping timely and sensitive information away from our enemies….

Robert Gibbs admitted bending the rules, but averred that this was done to “contextualize” the issue for reporters:

On Tuesday, the Senate intelligence panel hosted Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, CIA Director Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller, among others, on current and projected threats on the United States that included a discussion of the decision to give Miranda rights to Abdulmutallab. In the conversation, it was revealed that he was now talking.

Afterward, administration officials briefed reporters about cooperation by Abdulmutallab, who was read Miranda rights after just 50 minutes of interrogation about his attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas.

Gibbs said that briefing — and no other held by administration officials — uses information that shouldn’t be released. However, he conceded that the briefing to reporters on Tuesday was called in order to “contextualize” information released during the Senate hearing that Abdulmutallab was talking again to interrogators.

If an ordinary citizen spilled such beans, he or she would likely go to jail. But this president thinks he is above such rules, and can do this with impunity. Worse, he cares more about his image with reporters than the security of our country.

Note the underlying logic of this calculated decision to expose security info to reporters — that the president’s first mistake doesn’t matter because things came out all right in the end. Excusing mistakes that can be cosmetically covered is a Democratic thought pattern. Democrats care only about how things look and what they can get away with. That may sometimes be a strategy for short term success, but never holds up over the long haul.

On the other hand, Republicans are more data driven — they care how things really are in addition to some concern about appearances. They may be pragmatic, but they are more principled. That is a better strategy for shaping governance over the long term.

While the current flap between Kit Bond and Robert Gibbs is seen by many in terms of what happened — security briefing and security breach — the important lesson is the difference between the ideas and ethics that drive the two sides, and the effects those values can have on our country long-term.

Related:

NRO: The Corner — The Saga of Abdulmutallab, Underwear Bomber:

It is bad practice to tell the world that a terrorist has agreed to spill the beans on his fellow terrorists who are still walking around free overseas. That is, of course, unless the principal motivation is to try to save political hides at home, even at the expense of actually finding the terrorists Abdulmutallab worked with.

Obama is plunging the United States deeper into debt with China through reckless spending. He is preventing us from ending our dependence on foreign oil by opposing offshore drilling, ostensibly on environmental grounds.

Now he is using $2 billion of your taxpayer dollars to support Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras in drilling for oil off the shores of Rio De Janeiro. The funding will take the form of loan guarantees from the US Export-Import Bank.

FOXNews notes the discrepancy:

Some see a contradiction in an executive branch agency … facilitating abroad the very kind of energy exploration Obama opposes domestically.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday he wasn’t prepared to address the issue.

“I have not seen the story,” he said. “I’d have to take a look.”

But former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a vocal proponent of offshore drilling, had plenty to say.

“So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than $2 billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation’s state-owned oil company, Petrobas, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources?” she asked….

And here’s the kicker. Where do you think all this newly developed oil will be going? To China. Plans were finalized last May, according to this article in China Daily:

Petrobras to increase oil exports to China
2009-05-20

A long-term export agreement was also signed Tuesday between Petrobras and UNIPEC ASIA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), Asia’s largest refiner by output.

It provides that Petrobras export 150,000 barrels of oil per day to China starting from 2009 and 200,000 barrels of oil per day from 2010 to 2019….

Apart from the agreement, Petrobras and Sinopec signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) under which the two sides would cooperate in several areas such as exploration, refining, petrochemicals and the supply of related goods and services, said Petrobras.

Sinopec announced in February that it has signed a contract with Petrobras to import 3 million to 5 million tons of crude oil from the latter from February 2009 to January 2010 at market price.

Also in February, Sinopec and CDB signed an MOU with Petrobras regarding cooperation in the fields of oil and finance.

According to the memorandum, the annual trade volume between Sinopec and Petrobras will be raised from 3 million tons in 2008 to between 10 million to 12.5 million tons before the end of 2010. Their future oil trading volume will reach 30 million tons.

It gets even worse, as far as the Obama “smell test” goes. According to Bloomberg, Obama puppet-master George Soros bought a hefty stake in Petrobras before the announcement:

Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund’s largest holding.

As of June 30, the stake in Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer is known, made up 22 percent of the $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management LLC, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

It is becoming abundantly clear that Obama is focused on a (likely Marxist) new world order, and does not have the best interests of the United States at heart. His gaze is fixed firmly into the future post-American world:

(October 18th, 2008) Although the mainstream media have been careful to mask Obama’s real agenda, it is clear that the Zakaria model is the way that he sees the world. If elected president, we could expect him to disarm the citizens, move our sovereign nation increasingly under the control of the United Nations, and “spread the wealth around” by diluting our hard-earned way of life to help bring up the third world.

Senators and Representatives will be meeting with their constituents all over the U.S. this month. The U.S. House of Representatives adjourned for summer recess on July 31. The Senate ends their session today. Our elected officials will be spending August in their home states and districts listening to the voices of the locals — in town hall meetings, at pancake breakfasts and barbeques and a host of other public appearances.

Political advocacy groups are urging their members to use the opportunity to push for desired legislation. The National Rifle Association is urging its members to voice strong support for the Second Amendment. And NumbersUSA tells its members that going to August town hall meetings is the most important thing they can do.

But the real hot button topic this year is the pending healthcare legislation. Made arrogant by their control of all three branches of government, the Democrats have poisoned the water with heretofore inconceivable acrimony unbecoming folk in public service. Their remarks about their fellow citizens, often blatant lies, have turned what has always been an American summer tradition, a celebration of the First Amendment, into an unseemly brawl.

It started with open disdain for middle America. Nancy Pelosi called the “grass roots” citizens astroturf. Later Barbara Boxer sniffed with disapproval because those who disagree with Obamacare are well-dressed. Obama’s press secretary Gibbs agreed with Boxer, dubbing the protesters the “Brooks Brothers Brigade.” Gibbs dismissed the sincere views of the middle class as manufactured anger.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse released this statement:

The Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country….

These mobs are bussed in by well funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests who are desperately trying to stop the agenda for change the President was elected to bring to Washington. Despite the headline grabbing nature of these angry mobs and their disruptions of events, they are not reflective of where the American people are on the issues….

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ken Spain responded to the offensive DNC ‘Mob Rule’ statement:

What Democrats call ‘mob rule’ the average American calls ‘democracy.’ Is this the strategy Democrats had in mind when they promised to galvanize public opinion regarding their unpopular massive government-takeover of health care?

This hyper-defensive reaction from the Democrat Party speaks volumes about the precarious position their members find themselves in. Speaker Pelosi and other party leaders dubbed this recess a healthcare ‘offensive,’ but little did we know the ‘offensiveness’ would be aimed at their own constituents. These kinds of despicable characterizations of middle class Americans, who oppose trillions in mounting government debt, as elements of the partisan ‘fringe’ smacks of elitism.

Back home, the Democrats are having a hard time of it. At the end of July, Maryland Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil was hung in effigy outside a rally he held in Salisbury on the Eastern Shore. WSJ’s Opinion Journal reports:

As he entered the auditorium of the Mardela Middle and High School on Tuesday, a surprised Frank Kratovil waded through a sea of constituents. The first-term Democratic congressman had been told by aides that maybe two or three dozen residents would attend the “Congress in Your Corner” town-hall event in this Eastern Shore town of about 360 people. Instead, more than 250 people showed up. The crowd repeatedly burst into wild cheering, but not for Mr. Kratovil. The cheers were for residents who gave the congressman a piece of their mind over what’s happening in Washington.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett met with constituents for a “neighborhood meeting” outside a grocery store in south Austin, Texas on Saturday, August 1. He wasn’t expecting trouble, because the event had only been announced to fellow Democrats. But the largely Democratic crowd began chanting “just say no, and when he tried to leave they surrounded his car. Here’s video of that:

Senator Arlen Specter and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a town hall meeting in Philadelphia Sunday, August 2 at which audience members booed and jeered. One man asked, “When congressmen scoff at the notion of reading legislation because they aren’t qualified or they aren’t competent to understand it, how can we be confident that those congressmen are competent to re-engineer the entire health care system?”

On the evening of Monday, August 3, Wisconsin Democrat Representative Steve Kagen was greeted by several hundred “fired-up constituents” at his town hall meeting at the Brown County Library. Here’s Kagen’s audience:

Also on Monday night, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) of the Napa Valley ran into trouble:

Speaking in a packed church, Thompson and other speakers were met by shouts of “This is America!” and “What’s wrong with profit?” as they also tried to answer questions from supporters and critics in the audience….

On Tuesday, August 4 Massachusetts congressmen James P. McGovern and Richard E. Neal, whose two districts represent Worcester, held a joint meeting at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Amphitheater. There they were heckled and booed and shouted down several times.

On Wednesday, August 5 two Arkansas Democratic congressmen faced an angry crowd. U.S. Reps. Mike Ross and Vic Snyder were heckled and shouted at.

At one point, U.S. Rep. Mike Ross sat with his head in his hands while the crowd shouted….

On the afternoon of Thursday, August 6, U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ1) walked out of her town hall meeting in Holbrook, Arizona. The assembled crowd comprised mostly seniors, and they were not disruptive. They were just angry about the proposed health care, but she chose not to listen to them. Although she had scheduled the meeting, and all these white-haired people had taken the time and trouble to attend, she turned her back on her constituents and drove away in her brand-new gas-guzzling white SUV.

On the evening of Thursday, August 6, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor tried to speak for nearly 15 minutes at a meeting in Ybor City, Florida, but the crowd drowned her out. She finally gave up and left, with jeers following her.

North Carolina Congressman Brad Miller has announced that he will not be holding any town hall meetings during summer recess. He claims he received a death threat for not scheduling any meetings, but most media outlets have incorrectly portrayed this as the reason he is not having town halls. You can always count on the MSM to twist the facts to favor the Dems!

It promises to be an interesting month.

Related:

MAinfo — Violence Erupts at Rep Castor’s town hall in Tampa

White House to Democrats: “Punch back twice as hard”

Top White House aides gave Senate Democrats a recess battle plan on Thursday, arming the lawmakers with tips for avoiding disastrous town hall meetings….

“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” [deputy chief of staff Jim] Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting.

Fox Forum — Democrats’ Blame Game Keeps Backfiring

The Examiner — The hypocrisy and lies by the Left regarding Town Hall protests are adding fuel to the fire

Libertarians, Independents, Republicans and Democrats have come together to express their anger over the outrageous way that their taxpayer dollars are being spent in this country…. These are every day Americans who are absolutely sick and tired of politicians – on both sides – ignoring what the voters want and what is best for them and simply voting along party lines, regardless of the ramifications to the taxpayers….

It is typical of liberals and the liberal media to skew and actually lie about anything and anyone who does not agree with their agenda. Rather than admitting that the people protesting are ordinary Americans from all walks of life, they would prefer to label these people as those that are like liberal protesters – ‘manufactured’….

The biggest fear the Left is facing right now is that regular Americans can think for themselves. They are not paid to protest like liberals nor are they told what to protest or why. The liberal lies that are being spun all over the internet, television, radio and print newspaper are truly hypocritical and a serious abomination. All they are doing is adding fuel to the fire.

American Thinker — Left begins smear campaign against Town Hall protests

The first thing you have to understand is that it is impossible, according to the left, for conservatives to have a legitimate protest. Only liberals have “authentic” grass roots so the idea of the right demonstrating against anything – in their lights – is a political trick….

Of course, this is absurd on its face. The protests at congressional town halls are certainly authentic in that they represent the views of millions of people, if not a majority….