Obama Should Kick the Government's Ass

Loath to waste a good crisis, the progressive consensus is that America's overwhelming thirst for oil is the ultimate cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Self-styled progressives argue that if only the government would take more action to regulate energy and encourage the development of alternatives to traditional fossil fuels, disasters like the Gulf Oil Spill could be avoided. As if. Let's take a brief look at the role our government itself played in causing the spill, and see if we can't identify who's ass Obama should kick.

Gulf Oil Spill Tops Ixtoc Mexico Spill

As of yesterday, the gulf oil spill has surpassed the Ixtoc oil spill in Mexico and therefore taken the title of largest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As the oil spill continues, some mainstream media sites are starting to notice the disgusting relationship between BP and the government. 

Thoughts on the BP Oil Spill and the Tragedy of the Mixed Economy

The minute the recent oil spill in the Gulf started, I could almost hear the calls from those who would like nothing better then to condemn this as a market failure and bring the heavy hand of government in to secure the blessings of order in a formerly anarchic soulless profit driven enterprise.  Indeed, the proponents of regulation will tell one that for the past few years, regulation has been lax and the oil corporations have been allowed to run free and spoil natures virginal beauty and bounty.

Many in the mainstream media and some members of the public where shocked that the supposed regulators of the big oil companies where in bed with the oil companies themselves. For instance, there are many allegations that members of the Minerals Management Service accepted gifts, used cocaine on the job (doesn't that make the War on Drugs seem a little hypocritical?) and in general did not act in a "regulatory" fashion. To quote from a recent USA Today article about the regulators and their role:

"The failure of the government to adopt measures demonstrates the chokehold that the companies have on federal regulators, who seldom impose rules in the face of intense opposition, the safety experts said.

Malaise We Can Believe In

The comparisons between Barack Obama and the utter failure known as Jimmy Carter are many and varied.  Obama's first address from the Oval Office sounded eerily similar to Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" address, which is known as his "malaise" speech even though he never used the word.  Before Obama's address Walter Shapiro, a former Carter speechwriter,  wrote in Politics Daily that "Obama should not squander his Oval Office address on pleading the case for cap-and-trade energy legislation, which seems doomed in this Congress. Nor is this the moment for the president to burble once again about the supposed economic potential of green jobs."