HE WAS HIRED TO BE OBAMA NOT TO LEAD THE COUNTRY:

Deflection Point: What Obama's speech on the BP oil spill was lacking. (John Dickerson, June 15, 2010, Slate)

Maybe the call for a heroic moment of command is too much to ask for. Still, the president made the situation worse for himself. The use of the language of war created the imbalance. He talked of a "battle" and "siege," but like all the other times when war has been misused—the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the economic war Joe Biden declared last year—the action taken didn't match the words used to describe the menace. Prudent, methodical, and secure … Wait a minute. There's a war going on. Shouldn't we be doing something more? [...]

During the health care debate, supporters of the public option learned how to spot a presidential endorsement that was no endorsement at all. Though the president claimed to support the idea, there was no oomph in his voice. He's matching that strategy on this issue. He sounds like he'll take just about anything, a recognition perhaps of how tough a comprehensive bill would be in this election year.

The driving force in the guy's life is to find the love he didn't get from his parents, he's not going to take away our car keys.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 16, 2010 5:49 AM