The Rude Pundit and Obama's Oil Speech

Another non-ultra post: I must confess to the guilty pleasure of absolutely loving The Rude Pundit's blog.

He is extraordinarily profane and sacrilegious, so if you are easily offended, don’t read on, and don't click the link. But if you can tolerate the Pundit's usage of colorful language and sometimes crude sexual hyperbole to effectively make a point, and want to gain some insight, do read on, and do click here. Then scroll down to Tues 16 June (his separate posts do not have a unique URL), to the post called Obama's Oil Spill Speech: Us and Them.

I've cleaned it up a bit below, but you get the gist.

The President's big Oval Office speech was a bullsh*t pile of news updates, vague promises, and toothless threats. Look, we know that Obama wants the leak to stop. We know that the government is doing a lot of sh*t to make that happen, we know that the oil and tar and dead things need to be cleaned up, we know that BP is on the hook, we know that sh*t is effed up for fishing fleets and shrimpers. We know that he has limitations on what exactly he can do.

But the man said, "Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny." And he's right. So tell us what to do. Lead us. That's what we want; it's what we've wanted all along, not an especially skilled anchor informing us that oil spills are bad. "As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment," he said. So effing seize it.

Obama's cautious approach to governance made him speak in generalities with little vision for the future. He could have said he was wrong about further drilling. He could have laid out a path that said, "Here's where we are. Here's where we want to be. Here's how we get to this new place." And he could have called on all of us to help. Jesus Christ, how about one mention of conservation (beyond having "conservationists" on one of the endless stream of panels studying sh*t)? How about saying that it's time, once again, for American drivers to give up their big-ass SUVs? How about enlisting us in the fight, or making it into a fight for our survival? "It's wind energy or The Road, mf-ers. Which do you choose?"

Above is what I was hoping for--President Obama to use the disaster to seize the moment, to channel President Carter from 30+ years ago, and to challenge the United States of America to undertake a program analogous in scope and difficulty of putting a man on the moon.  The oil WILL run out.  We--and our children--need an all-out, full-court press to develop non-fossil fuel energy sources now while we can still be in proactive rather than reactive mode.

We just need a strong leader with vison to take us there.