In case you missed it, you can watch Obama’s speech here, or save yourself ten minutes and listen to Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Howard Fineman explain why they thought it was so terrible.
For starters, the speech included a jumble of metaphors. The oil leak is like a war, said Obama:
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No, the oil leak is not like a war, says John Podhoretz.
Well, maybe it’s more like a disease or a hurricane, said Obama:
There was also, of course, plenty of blaming others:
That was obviously not the case on the Deepwater Horizon rig, and I want to know why.
Obama also included a gratuitous swipe at conservative straw men, who were somehow still in charge of the drilling oversight organization Minerals and Management Service and believe in a “failed philosophy that views all regulation with hostility – a philosophy that says corporations should be allowed to play by their own rules and police themselves.”
But don’t let Obama’s belief that conservatives have a “failed philosophy” make you think he’s less than open-minded:
Yes, he really used the oil leak–in a speech about the government’s inability to stop it–to call on Congress to pass his big government energy bill.
As Daniel Foster notes at NRO:
All in all, a fairly typical speech from Obama in a non-campaign setting.
