It is not possible to remain unmoved as Rep. Charles Melancon (D-LA) finds the break point.
“Everything that I know and love is at risk.”
Watch it all. Melancon’s sincere pain is a rebuke to the incessant political posturing we see out of Washington, and all the artless media outrage to which we have become so accustomed.
In all seriousness–because this is a very serious situation–it seems that Chris Matthews’ heart is breaking, too:
Allahpundit writes of Matthews:
But now that I’ve watched and seen the hurt in his eyes when he says “idiotic cerebral meritocracy,” I fear something’s died here that can never be rekindled.
Matthews’ whole remark was:
“. . . this idiotic cerebral meritocracy has got to step aside and let the people who do things take over…”
And that is the problem in a nutshell. Our government is top-heavy with people who have never “done” anything.
The Obama administration is loaded down with academics and lawyers who have spent their lives theorizing about things like economics, markets, social order and crisis management–and criticizing methods with which they disagree–but who have little practical experience in doing.
In fairness to the White House, many members of congress (and their leadership) have never done anything but talk, pose and run for office, too, but perhaps it behooves a president to have a few people in place who know how to (as any successful capitalist would) find the people who have an acquaintance with practical applications and who know how to yell, and how to dig in with both unmanicured hands.
Admittedly, it is difficult to put such people in place. Can-do capitalists are jawboners; they tend to want to lead, rather than fall-in-line. But any administration should have a couple of them discreetly in the background, so that when things hit the fan, there are more than mere theorists on board.
Otherwise, you end up hearing the people who loved and trusted you question the “idiotic cerebral meritocracy” you’ve put in place, and declaring you “incompetent” from a rather large mic.
AJ Strata cries “incompetence” on another issue, too.
UPDATE: As a rule, I generally avoid posting videos created by political parties, unless it is to laugh at them, but this one is exceptionally well done, and relevant to the issue. It is also depressing as hell. When James Carville moves you, you know it’s serious. Yes, it makes the heart crack.
It’s going to take more than a marketing campaign to reassure these folks.
This sort of tone-deafness won’t do it.
Related:
Timeline
“incompetent, inexperienced and divisive”
“President is too busy to talk to you, Mr. Congressman”
Expecting too much of Government
Did Birnbaum lie to Congress?
Culture of Corruption at MMS
Passing the buck?
I recommend Bill Whittle’s piece on the sheep, the wolves and the sheepdogs to you (I think it is called Tribes in the archives of Eject! Eject! Eject!). People who “do” things are the sheepdogs. These are the people you want around when the walls are caving in or the tide is rising ominously or some kid flipped off his bicycle and is bloody and broken. The very opposite of the people who stand at podiums and say, “I am responsible.” Kack!
I’m an aspiring sheepdog with intellectual pretensions. Maybe my competence will be in accounting. God knows we’ll need more trustworthy people to make sure we’re “paying our fair share.” Maybe I’ll teach math. Whatever, I won’t ever get to the level of competence of some recent acquaintances I so admire.
One fellow has made a career of recovering bodies from collapsed concrete structures. His expertise is such that he has been on-site for nearly every major disaster you can name: most recently Haiti; the Persian earthquake; the Oklahoma City bombing… he happened to be across from the Pentagon on 9/11 for a meeting and knew many people who died there. You might be thinking his expertise doesn’t do much for the living, but he expressed his life’s mission as recovering the bodies for their families. He probably knows more than anyone alive about how to safely stabilize and dismantle damaged structures. He’s a sheepdog. “The famous are seldom great and the great are seldom famous” (Dennis Prager).
Sheepdogs don’t perform for the glory or the reward or the ride on Air Force One. They do it because it is the right thing to do and because they can. I don’t disparage the intentions of liberals. I think they are generally very decent and fun people who mean well. I just don’t want them in charge of my kids or my kids school or my city, state or country. They are Mary’s sons at those all important moments when we need Martha’s (see Kipling at my blog).
Call me Hard Hearted Hannah….I can’t generate an ounce of compassion for either of these pathetic men….Chris Matthews as the jilted lover and a teary eyed Melancon…….puhleeese! They act like junior high girls…………Where are the REAL men?
They call her hard-hearted Hannah,
The Vamp of Savannah
The meanest gal in town
Talk of your cold, refrigerating mamas;
Brother, she’s the polar bear’s pajamas
So, OK, now we know why I can’t get a date…………
Anchoress, you’re right that it cracks the heart, but I think people like Matthews compound their own heartbreak when they expect more from human institutions than they can achieve (being human, after all). One day’s philosopher-king becomes the next day’s “idiotic cerebral” meritocrat. I riff on this (and Kipling and King Cnut) at my place. Thanks for giving us an example of how to approach this without schadenfreude.
Thanks for posting these videos. These people are truly anguished about their beautiful state. We need to think about how we would react if some ghastly environmental disaster were overtaking our states. I can just imagine the outrage here in Colorado! When I saw the Carville video yesterday, my heart went out to him. I had the same reaction to the other two. These people may be liberals, but they are revealing their true emotions on this issue. Anguish, frustration, desperation, anger, disgust, dismay. They are all correct: We need leadership and ACTION. Where is it?
You almost . . . almost . . . feel sorry for Obama. He let a golden opportunity for leadership pass by, and there is no way to get it back. This is going to hurt him badly. Some serious character flaw at work here.
I couldn’t help noticing the ads for the release of the Alice in Wonderland video which kept intruding on one of these videos.
‘Ya wanna see “Wonderland,” down-the-rabbit-hole-let’s-get-small territory? Well, that would be America under the Obama administration.
I can’t stand to watch him or listen to him. Everything he says is a platitude, spoken as a shriveled up old school marm: “and you’d better listen to me.”
I just about threw up when he said that his daughter, Malia, asks every morning, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy? — and how this weighs heavily on his heart.
What a poseur: fiddling while Rome burns; diddling while the Gulf of Mexico churns.
Chrissy Mathews has finally embraced his inner racist. What other reason could he possibly have for criticizing President New Coke®?
Feeney, he’s not a leader, he just plays one on TV.
This illustrates the problem with a permanent political class. They are out of touch with real people who have real problems.
I don’t agree with James Carville on anything. , but it’s obvious he loves Louisiana and that his heart is breaking. Turns out he’s a human after all.
“The Obama administration is loaded down with academics and lawyers who have spent their lives theorizing about things like economics, markets, social order and crisis management–and criticizing methods with which they disagree–but who have little practical experience in doing.”
Think long and hard about this, folks. Where you see this, ruin often follow. Reality does not negotiate with you based on your IQ.
Anchoress is right — they haven’t ever had to do anything, just glide by with their Ivy League credentials.
Compare the number of Reagan admin. officials who’ve actually held jobs in the private sector with those in the current admin. Tells you all you need to know.
This is EXACTLY what you get when you elect someone who has done pretty much nothing except be a community agitator.
Wasn’t Melancon right-wing to begin with? I have just looked over his record & he sounds like a person who, whatever his party label, was never likely to be a close supporter of Obama.
The thing I just can’t figure out is why this Administration is saying no to the rebuilding of barrier islands in front of vulnerable marches. According to Jindal, as of the 27th “they approved a single segment of just two miles to see if the sand boom works.”, 3 or so weeks after the requests were made.
Even if you assume this Administration is totally political, this strikes me as seriously incompetent politics. Even those members of the Congress who have never done anything but “talk, pose and run for office” are better at this.
The problem here is that the left and the right are learning two different lessons. The right is learning the lesson outlined in your post–that can-do capitalists and hard workers are the people we need to rely, rather than government. The left is learning that drilling for oil is bad, bad, bad and that it should never be done again in our country or off our shores.
It is the political pose of anguish that we are seeing. It is what James Carville recommended that Barack Obama show the world — indicating that he feels the pain of the Gulf of Mexico.
The theme of competence is one the basic themes of my blog, but as disgusted as I am with Obama and his administration, I will not take the cheap shot and blame Obama for the Gulf oil spill disaster.
It is not a job for politicians from thousands of miles away. It is a job for technical experts and for regional and local helpers.
Americans need to get over their bloated “we care, but we really don’t” central government and get back to regional and local strengths.
Chris Mathews doesn’t even know what a Meritocracy is. It is a system that rewards
based on merit. This administration is a Thugocracy which rules by pushing people around and ignoring rules of Law and Order.
Chris Mathews is an idiot and it is now plain to see he doesn’t even understand the words he is using. UnF*ingbelieveable.
I have to assume that Melancon is being legit in his display of emotions. I live on the Texas coast less than a mile across the Sabine from Louisiana. Thousands of people down here are still in the process of getting our lives back to normal after Katrina, Rita, Ike and Gustav. This spill may do to the land what the storms did to our property. We are disaster weary down here.
The heart only cracks to see these traitors in power, but let us be clear: To their masters, their incompetence is feature and not a bug.
This problem is not really that they are incompetent at governing the nation, it is that they are competent at DESTROYING THE NATION. This what they lpve for; this is their program: The destruction of the USA and Western Civilization. The “people” are some of the worse scum to ever blight this or any other nation. I wonder of we will ever recover from them.
This Bolshevik morns “All he believed in”? He is a communist. what he “believes in” is one of the vilest ideologies in history and it infest nearly every corner of this weak and decadent nation. We must cast it out of this nation once and for all.
Heartbreak? It fills me with great joy to see them suffer, to see them exposed.
The only thing that is heartbreaking is that the electorate is so degenerate and supine to have handed power over to them. That, and the destruction that they have cause these last 80 years.
A great deal more than their “hearts” needs to be broken.
Carville’s rant reminded me of a guy with a bad case of the terrible twos. Washington can only transfer small pieces of paper covered with green ink. Those are not absorbent enough to sop up the oil. Only real working people and lot of luck can fix the problem. Carville did make one useful suggestion: the president should comfort the families of the eleven lost souls. Otherwise he needs to get out of the way.
Great piece Anchoress, about an inconvenient, and sometimes poigniant, facet of human nature.
It’s unfortuante that so often surronding oneself with the “smartest guys in the room” doesn’t necessarily mean they can get anything done.
I can’t help but think of an old aphorism: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.”
Your humble servant…
What I find particularly depressing about that last commercial is the repeated soundbite from Obama of “never again.” That term, of course, has particular resonance with the Jewish community. And when you look at how Obama is leaving Israel out to dry, it sounds especially horrifying coming from his mouth.
He has no right to use that phrase. None whatsoever. He represents all that is hateful to Jews and Judaism. He is using his mind and his words to destroy. He coddles those who would make war on righteousness and love. He spites those who would defend life and liberty. His only interest is using his gifts of a life and a mind to accumulate power over those he despises. Those gifts from a G-d of love.
I can’t stand him. And I can’t stand that I feel that way about someone. It is wrong. Which makes me hate him even more….
Meh. I wish I could say he is not worth the energy. But he needs to be opposed. He needs to feel the wrath of a people who know better. He needs to learn the lesson that we are all equal in the eyes of G-d. He needs to learn justice and compassion and the meaning of hard work.
We must not be silent. He must hear us. Never again, indeed.
Tex: I only wish the takeaway lesson was that government claims to be able to fix the global climate, abut can’t fix–what is by comparison–a leaky faucet.
We can expect to see the standard government position rolled out very soon. That is, even though the government failed miserably, it would have been far worse without government intervention, and everything would have been hunky-dory if only government had more power.
Boy, Oh Boy, Tex! You surely have that one right! The difference is between those who learn from and improve from mistakes and those who believe the only thing to learn is to do nothing in the future. This is especially true when doing nothing was what they wanted in the first place for totally different reasons.
As far as I know, the federal government does not maintain a department called the Department of Plugging Runaway Oil Wells. The only people who have the expertise and resources to fix this problem are the same people who broke it. Grow up, people. And all these Redneck Riviera politicians who are now whining about what Obama isn’t doing are the same pols who fought like hell to put drilling platforms there in the first place and opposed any attempts to regulate them as “government intrusion.” Sorry, guys, you can’t have it both ways.
[I don't think anyone is expecting the president to personally plug the hole. But people died on that rig. People's businesses and livelihoods are being affected. It behooves the president to go to Louisiana (and not just for three hours before his vacation, because he really has to) and communicate with these families and these businesses and do a bit of the one-on-one "I feel your pain" stuff that Clinton did so well. People need to feel like he is both on top of things (no one feels that way, when he doesn't even know if people are resigning or being fired) and personally committed, rather than incredibly detached. You, I am sure--understanding the limits of what a president can do--also lectured people to stop whining "where is Bush" and so forth after Katrina. Of course, with Katrina, the provenance of emergency response was local, state, fed, whereas this disaster took place in federal waters and was therefore the provenance of the fed right away. I don't know whether that makes any difference, but it probably should be noted. -admin]
During the campaign I remember seeing a video from a former co-worker of 0bama. He claimed that 0bama wasn’t even a good community organizer.
I think we can mark this as the point where Barack H. Obama’s Presidency came to an end. Nothing much else to do expect mark time and play some golf.
“The famous are seldom great and the great are seldom famous”
or as RR said (and I paraphrase), “you accomplish can anything you want as long as you don’t mind someone else getting the credit”
DirtyDave,
My initial prediction after the November 2008 election was that Obama’s political honeymoon would only last until he had to make his first big decision.
However, I was wrong: looking back, I can see that Obama’s presidency effectively came to an end on January 20, 2009 when he screwed up his oath of office and then had to retake it the next day.
I was once a GS-14 at Interior. It’s not so much the political appointees (who are in any event a tiny minority and rather out of touch, appointed to pay political debts rather than for knowledge of the area), but that government is simply not designed for quick and decisive action.
A minor example: every written document had to be prepared in seven copies. Even a GS-14 had little power; the most trivial letter was signed by his boss, anything of modest import by his boss’s boss, anything significant went higher. The least typo would result in a document being sent back for redrafting. I once had an emergency document sent back because on page two there was only one space between a period and the beginning of the next sentence, and the Govt Style Manual called for two. Another emergency document came back because at one point it referred to “indian tribes” when the departmental custom was to capitalize “Indian.” Given the inefficiency of the secretaries, each retyping, copying of seven sets, and formatting of the folder would take 2-3 days. I’ve seen a fellow GS-14 (current pay upwards of $100,000, to give an idea) proofing a letter while running a ruler down each line so they could concentrate on each word. And of course every decision went by consensus, and was based on guesses as to what was acceptable to higher levels, and agonizing over the precise wording (emphasis on being mealy-mouthed so as not to commit to something that might come back to bite you).
OK, in that setting, try to make major emergency decisions while dealing with, oh National Environmental Protection Act analyses (does this require an EIS, which will take a year or so?), Endangered Species Act clearance, etc., etc..
Jindal takes the right view: if you can do it, just do it, and tell the Feds to back away. They’ll take months to decide how to criticize you, let alone actually do something to you.
Hmmm.
“Personally, I liked working for the university! They gave us money and facilities. We didn’t have to produce anything. You’ve never been out of college. You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector… they expect results!”
- Dr. Ray Stantz
This incompetent president has had 39 days to think about this disaster and he had to read his speech from a card. I guess they could not rig up a battery operated TOTUS! Can you imagine that you were incharge of this mess for 39 days and could not speak from your heart? What a phony he is.
“the same pols who fought like hell to put drilling platforms there in the first place and opposed any attempts to regulate them as “government intrusion.”
Do you have any evidence they opposed or obstructed enforcement of the exisiting standards that the administration waived? New regulations (or old) are pointless if they aren’t going to be enforced.
It’s encouraging to see even leftists like Matthews begin to acknowledge that our elite universities are producing people who are very, very good at going to school, but are otherwise stupid, incompetent people who couldn’t make a decision if their life depended on it.
“Our government is top-heavy with people who have never “done” anything”
I’m generally not big on changing the constitution, but I’d support a change that barred anyone who hadn’t spent at least half of their adult life working in the private sector from holding any federal elective office.
As I read and watch reaction to the oil spill, and listen to the description of the “slow-motion disaster”, I confess as a Washington state resident that we probably had ours, too.
In a catastrophic move, the entire lifestyle of the Washington coast was destroyed by the declaration of the spotted owl as endangered (lumber industry gone) and the salmon (bye-bye fishing industry). We don’t have oil on the shoreline, but the ghost towns and loss of the tourist industry still speak.
Lives destroyed, lifestyles and incomes gone, stores closed, no money to fix up homes. It continues.
The fundamental philosophy of liberalism is to plug government into the role that deities used to play in human psychology. Obama played this up, and was elected on the premise that he would lower the seas, give us everything we want for free, and make all the things work that had frustrated so many leaders in the past.
Obama essentially signed up for godhood, halo photos and all, and now he’s discovering what happens to gods who don’t deliver. A more humble president might have done better.
Obama should have stayed in the community organizing business. He sure didn’t belong in Big White House.
My heart bleeds for the Dimmicrat congressman who has supported his parties policy positions which forced us to go off shore for our energy needs thus making the chances of a major enviromental disaster much more likely, the liberals along with their enviromental fanatic bed fellows are responsible for this period!
The engineers in the oil industry probably have the best expertise to cap the well, but why were there no federal plans in place to protect the shoreline from a catastrophe like this? Once that was apparent, the president lost people’s confidence because he was so anxious to distance himself from the culpability issues that he neglected to take the lead in coordinating efforts to reduce environmental damage. He is not a leader, only a self-promoting, blame-shifting lightweight community activist.
Sympathy for the Left as they are forced to confront the realities of the results of their policies is not something that I feel. They are enemies of this country, and I really am reluctant to even grant the human status that totwtytr has discovered for James “Snakehead” Carville. He has been a loyal party apparatchnik for decades and has fought desperately to install the very system of theory-over-reality incompetence that is apparent now.
Jerry Bowles is right on one thing. “the federal government does not maintain a department called the Department of Plugging Runaway Oil Wells.“.
It does have a horde of Federal inspectors who are charged with making sure that oil drillers are in compliance with all safety and environmental regulations.
The regime [*] of Buraq Hussein Obama had been in power for roughly 17 months when this happened. During that 17 months, they were able to give BP an award for safety on that rig. They apparently did not have any time to actually send inspectors to the rig to … like … make sure that they were in compliance with the safety rules. BP apparently [accurate and descriptive phrase deleted out of respect for the Anchoress] big time. And they felt secure in cutting those corners. [*- I use the word "regime" deliberately, based on a specific definition in the world of economics.]
Could it have had something to do with the fact that BP gave more money to the Obama campaign than to any other candidate they contributed to in the last 20 years? If you base the legitimacy of your regime in part on cleaning up crony capitalism, you have to ride the heat for participating in it. Of course, maybe in theory, giving money to the Democrats in a large enough quantity is an adequate substitute for real world competence.
There is another aspect of this that is of a piece with this regime’s history. During and after Hurricane Katrina, the Democrats and the MSM deliberately played up the racial aspect of the damage; even to the point of pretty much ignoring the larger catastrophe on the Gulf Coast. FEMA was the whipping boy, for not being there before the hurricane hit [which would have meant the relief supplies would have been destroyed by the hurricane].
After all, it was primarily conservative whites who were suffering there.
Shortly after the inauguration, there were two natural disasters. The Red River in the Dakotas flooded; wiping out communities. No Federal aid, no FEMA, until long after the fact. About the same time, there were massive blizzards and ice storms that knocked out all power, blocked roads, prevented delivery of food and propane to a huge swathe of Kentucky and Tennessee. Not only was their no FEMA response for 6 weeks, they claimed it was too hard to get there.
No media attention. No Federal aid. The suspicion arose that it is because there was no black racial angle that could be played up.
We just finished a period of major flooding in Tennessee. Cities were inundated, parts of Nashville wiped out. I know people in Tennessee who are on the edge of the damaged area. NO sign of FEMA for over two weeks [FEMA doctrine is to be there within 72 hours]. We have a disaster in the Gulf, that is destroying the livelihoods of millions along the coast. The regime has been backpedalling and trying to avoid involvement with it, until forced to. Once again, in neither situation was there an easily exploited racial component.
Anyone see a pattern here?
Subotai Bahadur
“I’m generally not big on changing the constitution, but I’d support a change that barred anyone who hadn’t spent at least half of their adult life working in the private sector from holding any federal elective office.”
Well said. It’s time to diminish the unproductive class in dramatic fashion and let members of the productive class be in charge. (The only reason this doesn’t happen more often is because those in the productive class are too busy, well, producing things.)
It’s also a good argument for term limits for *all* in government, legislator and bureaucrat alike. Start out in the productive sector, learn a skill that can be shared with the government for a *brief* time, and get back to producing things again.
Three is a broader audience watching Obama’s ineptitude than us.
Iran. North Korea. China. Russia. Turkey. Pakistan. Their leaders are watching Obama and wondering the same thing: as a management problem, the oil spill is relatively straightforward and he could not manage it. So is he competent to lead during a immeasurably more complex and pressing crisis involving one or more of them?
The answer is no. And they know it. So do our allies. The implications are terrible. More here..
You are conflating Hamlet with ham and eggs.
The Act V quote, spoken by Horatio:
“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince.
And, flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
As this tragedy unfolded, I began to think about how to get the oil out of the water. Not having any previous knowledge or experience with oil leak disasters, I hardly knew where to begin. One solution that seemed plausible to me was literally vacuuming the oil out of the water. Watching CNN one night this week, a former oil industry executive and expert made the same case. He was livid that BP and the administration had not brought in tankers to do just that.
No matter what it costs, no matter how labor intensive, massive efforts should be deployed to get the oil out of the water. I do not understand why nothing is being done. The dispersant is yet another pollutant and does not remove the oil.
The woman in charge of the agency that (was supposed to) regulate offshore drilling was a lawyer. Now, I don’t know if her termination was justified or was mere scapegoating. But I can’t help wondering…what if someone with actual *operational* experience in the industry had been in the job?
A society is not fundamentally transformed (as he promised to do) without great suffering. We’re just seeing the beginning. He simply, like any megalomaniac, doesn’t care what he destroys.
The US Army Corps of Engineers did not plug the
holes in the Levees in New Orleans after Katrina.
They tried, failed, and were saved at the last
moment by a small businessman who made them aware of, and arranged for transport to them of
thousands of ten-ton, helicopter liftable sandbags;
The manufacturer of the sandbags had tried to sell
some to FEMA, and been told that they could not
imagine any situation in which they would need
a sandbag that large. Enough said ?
This only goes to show how deeply indoctrinated these Obama believers were (and still are). The hard left most often never bothers to question anything; they just blindly believe (and follow). Eventually, following some horrific problem, most have an epiphany and come around. But, because their worlds have suddenly been turned upside down, they are in shock and therefore not helpful even then.
I have personal knowledge of the above facts since I spent 58 years as a Democrat. But, although indoctrinated back then, I started to question the Leftist agenda 4 years ago following their poorly concealed lies & the fact that nothing they said at the time made any sense! That’s when I came around, and learned that I had been taught mostly lies. That’s pretty hard to take, but it’s easier if you dive into it and strive to understand the Leftist agenda.
At this late stage, Matthews – in particular – really has no excuse. He had access to tons of information & could have easily discerned the truth had he approached such with an open mind.
Besides, I’ll never forgive Matthews for the countless false, derogatory, mindless and egregious statements he made over the past three years. Furthermore, I’ll especially never forget the way Matthews used his near-fiduciary media position to broadcast these false, inflammatory declarations! I usually don’t wish bad things on people but I think Chris Matthews deserves this, and much, much more.
Okay, tomorrow is Sunday. For those of us who practice a faith that honors the Sabbath, use the time wisely, pray for the Gulf. Let us together send up a prayer to our God to save the Gulf. (Catholics, ask St. Francis to intercede on behalf of the parishes of Louisiana and all Gulf states.) May God continue to bless America.
It is true that the government is loaded with people that have never done anything. But worse than that, most of them are confident that they know all, and they are opposed to letting anyone with real knowledge and ability be able to function. This is a catastrophic combination.
All that anybody can do at this point is watch and pray. The answer is not to quit accessing our natural resources, but that will be what the government will do. Others will call for more regulations, when it was the failure to apply the ones we have that made this the disaster it is. This was a failure of the big government measures that environmentalists have pushed for.
Only the oil industry has the expertise and equipment to fix this. It’s too late for the government to stockpile booms, form and train environmental crisis teams or invent new technologies to address these circumstances.
I think the best point I’ve seen was from Charles Krauthammer asking “What are we doing drilling wells 5000 feet under water in the first place?” when there are sources closer to shore, and on the north slope of Alaska, that have been place off limits by the government.
As much as I feel sympathy for those being hurt down there, it might be a good time to remember how much of their economies are based on offshore drilling. They aren’t all fisherman.
From the earth’s perspective this is nothing more than a hiccup. It will recover and bury this, just as it did in Prince William Sound. Chris Matthew’s outcry notwithstanding, the Gulf isn’t going anywhere. This isn’t like a meteor strike or a nuclear attack. We’ll recover and prosper. We always do.
Meanwhile, I wish we had leaders both local and state as well as federal who would quit worrying about how to promise more and spend more to refashion society and actually do their jobs of keeping the promises they’ve made in the past. There’s an old saying, “Stick to your knitting.” That should be the message to all politicians and the oil industry. Do your jobs and do them right. You can’t afford to let your attention stray.
Pierre Toussaint, holy man of old New York, intercede to God to send a miracle in your name on behalf of the citizens of the Gulf. May your saintly life lead you to sainthood.
Liars are certain they can outsmart their target. Kids lie to mommy and often get away with it, mainly because she wants to believe her precious child, dad is usually a little tougher, but he also wants to believe.
Next comes lying to a group and proficient liars can usually pull it off, but, when you lie to millions, the odds of exposure are tremendously increased, and once someone exposes the lie it becomes clear to almost everyone… except maybe mom. The king has no clothes!
Finally, once you have convinced folks you are a liar, they are suspicious of everything you say, true or not. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!
Obama is a habitual liar and now everyone knows it, even his most dedicated supporters.