Winston Groom, of Forrest Gump fame, wrote a scathing editorial in The Mobile Press-Register concerning the dismal federal response to the oil spill.  He argues that berms and boom are so much window dressing; seriousness means skimmers.

There are approximately 2,000 skimmer craft in the U.S., some large, some small. At present, more than two months after the leak from Deepwater Horizon began, just 400 of these are located in Gulf Coast waters.

Where are the other 1,600? They are tied up from New York to Alaska and points along the way by federal regulations that confine them to areas that might have an oil spill.

The Dutch, Norwegians and other nations have massive oil-skimming ships that could deal with that 30-mile-long spill in short order. But because they only capture 96 percent of the oil they skim up and process, and put 4 percent back into the water, they are forbidden by federal EPA regulations to skim up oil slicks such as those headed for our shores.

Instead, BP is forced to fight the slicks with dispersants that leave 100 percent of the oil still in the water. But that’s OK with the EPA and the clowns in Washington.

Recently, we were informed by the Press-Register that an oil slick in Mobile Bay could not be skimmed because the owners of the nearly 200 private boats working for BP out of Dog River and Fairhope had not passed an OSHA test for oil handling required by government regulation.

For two months, 13 oil-producing countries plus the United Nations have offered to send us their huge oil-skimming tankers and other vessels that can collect a thousand times the amount of oil that the shrimp boats or barges, let alone small outboard boats we are currently using, can collect.

But the Obama administration has dragged its feet on accepting these generous offers because of a labor-union law called the Jones Act that permits only U.S.-built ships crewed by U.S. seamen to operate in U.S. waters. Finally, on Tuesday, the State Department said it was “working out the particulars” of accepting the help.

Nate Beeler in the Washington Examiner with the perfect fusion:

Beeler strikes again…

“The Alien in the White House,” though it sounds like an update from the kook fringe, is actually the title of Dorothy Rabinowitz’s piece today in the WSJ.  It’s a look at the entirely predictable breakdown that occurs when you have a president separated from the American people to an unprecedented degree.  Obama cannot sound convincing when addressing a crisis because he lacks the instincts.  Such is the downside of having a ‘citizen of the world’ in the White House when we need to hear from one of our countrymen.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama’s pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans’ leader, a man of them, for them, the nation’s voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn’t lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

In one of the oddest decisions yet for this administration, Obama is pushing to lift the international ban on whaling for the three countries that still hunt whales:  Japan, Norway, and Iceland.

The argument is that this move will save whales by closing the loopholes in the moratorium:

Under Obama’s deal, the three whaling countries would be allowed to keep hunting whales for a 10-year period in reduced numbers. The whaling countries in return would agree to tighter oversight of their operations, including participation in a whale DNA registry.

What we really have here is an amnesty for whale hunting nations.  Let’s bring them out from the shadows and regulate their activity.  We already provide clean needles for drug addicts, and what is a harpoon, I ask ye, but a grand needle with which to prick leviathan?

This is a move with no political upside.  It’s one thing to consider an exception for a few eskimos hunting the occasional whales in traditional hunts; it’s quite another to legitimize the industrialized slaughter of thousands of these creatures annually.  It will anger not just the radical environmentalists, but most folks with a smidgen of conscience.

Are we really saying that three advanced nations can’t be made to give up a barbaric practice?  There is no economic justification for whaling, unless we are considering whale oil as a possible substitute for fossil fuels.  I would imagine Japan is more concerned about exporting Toyotas than the value of flukes or liver extract in the exotic foods market.

Obama has created a rare opportunity for the Republicans.  Save the Whales in 2012!  The ban, after all, was championed by the Gipper.

Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:

The American people have spent at least two years worrying that high government spending would, in the end, undo the republic. They saw the dollars gushing night and day, and worried that while everything looked the same on the surface, our position was eroding. They have worried about a border that is in some places functionally and of course illegally open, that it too is gushing night and day with problems that states, cities and towns there cannot solve.

And now we have a videotape metaphor for all the public’s fears: that clip we see every day, on every news show, of the well gushing black oil into the Gulf of Mexico and toward our shore. You actually don’t get deadlier as a metaphor for the moment than that, the monster that lives deep beneath the sea.

Barack “the Greek” Obama, he is not. He’s predicted the Lakers to win the NBA championship this year.  As a Celtics fan, I am an ecstatic.  Why?

Let’s look at the president’s record this year in major sports:

• 2010 Super Bowl: Indianapolis Colts
• 2010 NCAA men’s basketball tournament: Kansas

No wonder the President does not like Las Vegas.

The Obama administration hit a new low the other day on its apology tour.  During human rights discussions (wink, wink, not to worry…) with China, state department officials managed to call attention to the horrors of enforcing our immigration laws in Arizona.  Better yet, our own officials brought the subject up.

[Assistant Secretary of State Michael] Posner said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.

He said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its [sic] own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person’s immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally.

NRO’s Jay Nordlinger has a suggestion for Arizona:

Bear in mind that China is a country with a gulag (called laogai). A country that denies citizens their basic rights: to expression, to assembly, to worship, and so on. A country against which all-too-credible charges of organ harvesting have been made. A country that imprisons and tortures anyone with the nerve to ask for freedom, including some of the bravest people on earth: Liu Xiaobo and Gao Zhisheng are but two of them.

I have a suggestion. I suggest that the Arizona legislature pass a resolution calling on the government in Washington not to apologize for or condemn the Arizona law to foreign dictatorships. Seriously. The resolution would have no binding effect; it would merely be symbolic, and shaming. But legislatures have busied themselves with worse.

Here’s Powerline’s take.

Last November I participated in a panel at a conference at the University of Notre Dame on the issue of President Obama’s May 2009 commencement address. Other participants on the panel included Radford University’s Matthew Franck and Gwen Brown, moderated by my Baylor colleague, Donald Schmeltekopf.

A version of the paper I delivered on that panel has just been published in Touchstone: A Magazine of Mere Christianity (May/June 2010).   Entitled, “Justice for Some: Moral Theology & the President’s Honorary Doctorate,” here is an excerpt:
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In his commencement address today at Hampton University in Virginia, President Obama said the following:

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, – none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.” (emphasis added).

The President is not telling the truth about his own skill set. For we learned in 2008 that he is not only a prodigious user of his Blackberry, but that he owns and uses an iPod, that includes the works of Bob Dylan and Yo-Yo Ma. So, the President does know how some of these gadgets work.

Again, I’m not sure about the wisdom of the Arizona immigration law. But I am sure that a president who disagrees with it should do so with respect for consent of the governed as well as an understanding of the issues facing the citizens of Arizona. President Obama, full of wisecracks and one-liners, really does not have what it takes. At some point even the First Lady’s husband has to man up.

Andrew Sullivan has a wonderful link in “Because we are Nashville” to why we are not listening or hearing more about the devastating floods down there. From Patten Fuqua:

But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.

As RedState points out, Obama has yet to acknowledge this disaster, even to the point of failing to mention Tennessee in today’s national day of prayer proclamation.

From from the Washington Times (via Drudge):

President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation’s economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.

In its 2011 budget, which the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released Feb. 1, the administration projected a 10-year deficit total of $8.53 trillion. After looking it over, CBO said in its final analysis, released Thursday, that the president’s budget would generate a combined $9.75 trillion in deficits over the next decade.

Tonight this will be broadcast in its entirety on PBS. Bob Dylan, along with a number of other performances, were at the White House for a special concert celebrating the music of the Civil Rights Movement. Thank you, President Obama, for this wonderful event!

Three times in the video the President makes reference to a Navy corpse-man. Perhaps the undead are clamoring for bio-equality? Who knew?

Mr. Obama has his opinion; now let him render it.

From the ABC News website (emphasis added):

“The president’s going to explain why he thinks the American people are angry and frustrated,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on “Good Morning America” today.

“Many of the same factors that led Sen. [Scott] Brown to become a senator from Massachusetts led Barack Obama to become president. Now, we’ve got to deal with those angers and frustrations by putting people back to work, by demonstrating we have a plan to get our economy continued on the road to recovery and putting those folks back to work, and protecting our country from those who seek to do us harm.”

Two observations. First, why is that when a liberal idea is rejected it is the consequence of “anger” at the wrong target, but when a conservative idea is rejected it is “speaking truth to power”? Notice, liberal ideas are never rejected for reasons, and conservative ideas are never accepted but for unreason. If you believe this, you are living in denial, for it means that you have insulated yourself from correction and repentance, from the healing of mind and soul. And that’s not a good thing. Second, the President, according to Mr. Gibbs, will tell us this evening what really lurks in the hearts of those that make up the population whose support for his policies is dwindling at an alarming pace. Apparently, the President has some secret knowledge about the inner lives of vast numbers of the American public, insights that are undetectable by we ordinary humans who are limited by our five senses and cognitive faculties. So, if you think you know what you believe about the President’s policies, your self-knowledge may be mistaken. Tonight, thankfully, the President will reveal to us what we really believe.

“He did not need human testimony about them, for he knew what was in their hearts.” – John 2.24

From today’s Slate:

BOSTON—President Obama flew in Sunday for a last-minute campaign stop for beleaguered senatorial candidate Martha Coakley. In his speech, besides the usual exhortations to the party faithful, he managed to work in several snide references to her opponent’s truck as a symbol of false populism. Coakley’s opponent, Republican Scott Brown, was flabbergasted. “Unbelievable,” he said. “The leader of the free world is talking about my truck.“

Read about it here. And while you’re at it, go here and donate to Danny Tarkanian’s campaign for the Nevada U.S. Senate seat. Oh, by the way, here’s Tark’s response to the comments made by Reid:

“A few weeks ago, Harry Reid compared his health care opponents to slavery defenders. Now he’s talking about our President’s ‘light skin’ and ‘negro dialect.’ He disgraces himself almost monthly with some disparaging remark about his constituents, political opponents, or now the President.”

“I notice he’s apologized already for these remarks, but we’re still waiting for his apology to the majority of Nevadans who oppose his health care plan.

“Harry Reid isn’t just America’s most vulnerable Senator – as he demonstrates daily, he’s also its most embarrassing.”

Update: Harry Reid has issued an apology, that includes this gem: “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans, for my improper comments.” Apparently, Senator Reid believes it would have been perfectly fine for him to have communicated the same sentiment if his choice of words had not been so impoverished. The impropriety of his comment, then, according to Senator Reid, rests solely on his limited vocabulary rather than what he intended to convey to his listener. Thus, the question that should be posed to the senator is this: How would you have better communicated to your fellows the electoral advantages of Senator Obama’s pale-hued derma and adroit eloquence?

Read about it here. This one-time phenotypical male “recently served as Deputy Director in Advanced Technology Development at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Ariz.” A trangender missile builder? Only in America. (Freudians, feel free to opine).

He writes at NRO’s the Corner:

When we do know for a fact that Mutallab tried to blow up a plane, we get a presidential “allegedly” (“a passenger allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body, setting off a fire”), and yet when we don’t know all the facts, as in the Professor Gates mess, we get instantaneous certainty (“the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”)

The perils of political correctness are especially pernicious when the emperor has no clues.

President Obama was a bit more honest than he, or his speechwriters, intended today.

We just had a very productive session about the final stages of health care reform in the Senate. And from the discussions we had, it’s clear that we are on the precipice of an achievement that’s eluded Congresses and presidents for generations, a achievement that will touch the lives of nearly every American.

The precipice, Mr. President?  How bout we take a few steps back then?

Well, the directive buried last week at the end of the news cycle is coming to light.  Obama is transferring some of the Gitmo detainees to Illinois.  The news accounts have the idiotic spin that this has something to do with job creation:

Obama has faced some resistance to the idea of housing terrorism suspects in the United States, but in Thomson many have welcomed the prospect as a potential economic engine. Thomson Village President Jerry Hebeler, was asleep when the word came that Thomson had been chosen.

“It’s news to me, but then I’m always the last to know anything,” Hebeler said Monday night of the news affecting his town of 450 residents. “It’ll be good for the village and the surrounding area, especially with all the jobs that have been lost here.”

No concern with this town becoming the leading symbol of the operation-formerly-known-as the “War on Terror.”  The Overseas Contingency Operation has gone domestic.

Here is Andrew McCarthy’s response on NRO when the directive came to light last week:

It’s an outrage. It will inevitably result in trained terrorists being released in the United States — bank on it.

Unthinkable?  Funny how what was unthinkable becomes plausible and pragmatic with the passage of time.

If you have a few moments, you owe it to yourself to stop and read President Obama’s Nobel speech and pretend, just for one moment, that it is not coming out of his mouth. It is definitely one of his better speeches, on par, I think, with his 2007 speech on Religion and Public life and his 2008 speech on race. He is thoughtful, measured and cognizant of history. He’s almost, dare I say, realistic. Once and a while, a glimmer of non-ideological thought breaks through his lips. One of the most sobering parts and best is the following passage. It shows that partisan thoughts aside, he might just be beginning to understand the awesome weight of the US Presidency in a way that his two Democratic predecessors did not: (more…)

The Wall Street Journal has a story about obstacles in the way of Democrat plans to tap the unused TARP money for an expansion of their slush funds.  Unfortunately for Dems, TARP was passed back when we thought 700 billion dollars was a significant sum, and the funds are restricted to the purpose of stabilizing the financial system.

Of course, the Democrats are going to give it the old SEIU try.  The Journal’s paragraph describing the President’s appeal is telling:

Much of the president’s presentation will be general and will focus on Washington’s obligation to help Main Street as well as Wall Street. The president is expected to outline ideas for job creation such as aiding cash-strapped state governments, using tax credits to spur home energy-efficiency improvements — the so-called cash-for-caulkers proposal — and offering employers a tax credit for new hiring.

“Ideas for job creation such as aiding cash-strapped state governments”? Yup, that’s always Number 1 on my list of ways to fire up the the engine of American entrepreneurialism.  Let’s make it possible for legislatures and governors in progressive states to maintain their bloated budgets.

As to the third item, why not just deliver a tax cut for small businesses?  Or address the real problem:  the uncertainty over the future costs of Obamacare and Cap and Tax.  No, I think a one-time tax credit that will do nothing toward the future costs of employment should do the trick.

(Warning: Some of this is explicit and nauseating). You can read the disturbingly shocking news here. I’ve already blogged on Mr. Jennings and his favorable opinion and admiration of NAMBLA-supporting Harry Hay. But that’s Amish Sunday School when compared to these recent revelations.

First Things‘ Gateway Pundit reproduces a report published by Scott Baker, co-founder of Brietbart-Tv.com. Here are some excerpts (I placed asterisks in place of letters in profane words, just in case a SA reader was not truly prepared for some of the language):
—-AGAIN: Warning on content—-
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Obama’s choice of West Point for his grand announcement brought to mind one of the greatest speeches ever given beside the Hudson, General Douglas MacArthur’s farewell address in 1962. The contrast could not be more stark: the man whose achievements made him too dangerous to be President and the man whose very lack of discernible achievements elevated him to the office. One whose promises changed the course of history, and one with a history of promising change.

Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation’s war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.

You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.

This report from ABC News is a bit unfair.  Yes, the administration’s report states that 30 jobs have been saved/created in Arizona’s 15th congressional district and … there are only eight districts in Arizona.  However, the reporter fails to note the profound impact that the creation of another seven congressional districts would have on the state’s economy.  That’s in addition to the eight districts saved by the stimulus plan.

Update:  Good news!  Congressman Obey (or Soros will fund a challenger in your primary) has discovered even more job creating potential in correcting the recovery.gov errors:

Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc, who chairs the powerful House appropriations Committee, issued a paper statement demanding that the recovery.gov Web site be updated.

“The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”

“Night and day,” people.  That means two sets of employees.

John Yoo’s piece at The Enterprise Blog on the KSM fiasco, “KSM Trial a Boon to al Qaeda”:

Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda, tie up our courts for years on issues best left to the president and Congress, and further cripple our intelligence agencies’ efforts to fight terrorists abroad.

KSM and his co-defendants will have all of the benefits and rights that the U.S. Constitution accords those who live here, most importantly the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it was obtained.

Arrested spies commonly use this right to get a better deal out of the government, which will want to avoid opening up its intelligence sources and methods on KSM, what information it got from him, and what else it knows about his fellow al Qaeda operatives.

HT Corner