Obama’s Faith-Building Exercise: Energy and the Middle East
“Let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith,” President Barack Obama intoned at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year.
Let me tell you, President Obama, these past two years, they have deepened everyone’s faith!
The latest faith-building exercise is the president’s management of revolution in the Middle East, where strategically important energy supplies hang in the balance, while he’s simultaneously curbing American oil and gas production.
It’s surreal.
Just before that Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, thereby inflaming the region with revolutionary fervor, Obama, on December 1, rescinded his March 2010 decision to expand offshore oil exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast — a moratorium expected to last at least seven years. All told, these regions have reserves equivalent to Norway (7.5 billion barrels of oil), and Canada (58.5 trillion cubic feet of gas); and the expansion, partially opening those waters, would have yielded enough oil to fuel more than 2.4 million cars and heat 8 million households for 60 years.
In spite of a Louisiana federal judge holding the administration in contempt over the moratorium, Republican Senator David Vitter (R-LA) recently called out Obama appointees Ken Salazar and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) Director Michael Bromwich, for claiming many more pending offshore drilling permits than is actually the case.
Under pressure, Bromwich, the top U.S. offshore-drilling regulator, said this month that more permits would be issued “within the next week,” not months, while publicly excoriating the industry for what he considers its devil-could-care attitude in the wake of last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Bromwich told reporters, “I don’t know what the pace will be going forward. I don’t think anyone is in a position to say what that will be.”
But Obama’s energy sleight-of-hand is a tea party compared to his management of revolution in the Middle East.
He was, of course, a little late to that party that, Sphinx-like, now involves solving a riddle — how to maintain stability in the midst of tectonic change — or be gobbled up.
Obama didn’t even mention the nascent Egyptian uprising in his State of the Union and failed to publicly encourage democracy in Egypt until crisis hit, leaving many scratching their heads given Egypt’s critically important role in Middle East stability.
With revolution spreading like wild fire throughout the region, prevention in Egypt — urging now-deposed President Hosni Mubarak, as President George W. Bush did, to prune dead branches of government repression and end incendiary injustice — should have been job one.
But it was only when the fire was fully ablaze that Obama engaged — in spite of remaining neutral during the historic Iranian “Green Revolution” in June 2009. Nine days earlier, speaking at Cairo University, on the eve of the Iranian elections then shaping up as a sham, Obama highlighted U.S. intervention in the 1953 Iranian coup, intimating that it catalyzed the 1979 radical theocratic takeover. When protests erupted over the patently unfair Iranian elections, Obama remained neutral in spite of the fact that our interests and values perfectly aligned in that instance.
Let’s not forget promising billions of taxpayer money for off-shore drilling in Brazil while our rigs just sit there or are moved to other countries. Anyone have the numbers on George Soros’ investments in Brazilian oil?
I hear that Obama is finally going to talk to the American public about Libya on Monday evening at 7:30 PM from a university. Imagine that, we are in our THIRD Middle Eastern war, and this guy is not even giving a speech from the Oval Office in Prime Time. Nope, some crummy little university nobody’s heard of during the dinner hour. I guess he really, really, doesn’t want the American public to hear his lame excuses for getting involved in Libya. What a gutless coward this man is, not having the stones to at least stand before a joint session of Congress and explain why he did NOT consult with them at all before sending our forces into harm’s way again. And please, informing Congress a few hours before the missiles start flying is NOT consulting Congress at all, let alone getting their approval or a joint resolution from Congress to go to war. If I were a member of Congress right now, I would be really, really, upset.
Well, at least Obama isn’t giving the speech on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. At least that’s something, I guess.
Let me tell you, President Obama, these past two years, they have deepened everyone’s faith in the rich life style benefits of high political office.
Comparing Libya to Iraq fails to take into account that not only was there a humanitarian crisis in Iraq with – according to UNICEF – 50,000 Iraq infants dying each year because of sanctions but also, that as soon as sanctions ended, Saddam would again have turned his attention to developing nuclear weapons. The lengths to which Saddam had gone to develop nuclear weapons is detailed in the 1999 book SADDAM’S BOMB, written by Daniel McGrory and Shyam Bhattia.
I have no doubt that the number of infant deaths was exaggerated by UNICEF just as the possibility that Saddam would again pursue nuclear weapons when sanctions ended was downplayed and even denied by the MSM and understated by the communications-challenged Bush administration.
Obama’s redefining “Acting Stupidly”
As Farrakhan says; “WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”
Obama is all powerful, all seeing, omnipotent ruler of The United States of America, buddy!
Who do you think you are questioning his authority?
“What goes ’round, comes ’round”. When Reagan first went after Ghaddafy as punishment for sponsoring terrorism, he was criticized by most European countries for taking unilateral military action, to which they were not willing to commit. As if Ghaddafy was much more “humanitarian” in those days. Today, when the world energy situation is more serious, they are not so hesitant, and are taking the lead to depose the dictator. Unfortunately, Clinton and Obama were also sucked into the fiasco. Who will replace Ghaddafy is the question?
Libya is an easy target for a presidential wimp desperate to flaunt his street creds.
“Street cred’s”? Hahaha.
Where? Gambia? Oh; Maybe south Chicago!
“It’s not fascism when we (the democrats) do it”.
With every passing day, the Obama regime becomes more transparent regarding not only its incompetence but its duplicity. As Biden pointed out, Obama should be impeached for doing what Bush did. Or is that only applicable to Republicans, Joe?
Explain to me again exactly how Obama is different than the anarchists in the streets in London the last few days.
Wasn’t that his only job before the Make Believe Media annointed him president?
Obama is nothing but your common garden variety lib/left sleaze bag. Tell you what you want to hear, act as you are supposed to act and do as you damn well please, if it doesn’t work out, blame it on someone.
Somewhere down the road these naive and gullible Obamaites will be surprised to discover that those they helped are now the ones at their doors with guns. These are also the same people that will be completely surprised that 911 is no longer in service.
#1, Barrys boss has 900 million invested in petrobas.
We have to get over the idea that Barry is stupid or incompetent. Lazy,yes. Evil, yes. His boss, Soros didn’t go from a being teenager selling out his fellow Jews to the Nazis to one of the worlds richest men because he’s stupid. Imagine how much power it would take to tell one of your puppets(Hillary) that you had decided that another one your puppets(Barry) will take her job?
“Our Sphinx-like president is now faced with a riddle: how to maintain stability in the Middle East”
Sorry ma’am, maintaining stability isn’t in a community organizer’s job description. Instigating anarchy is the actual requirement.
So far, he’s doing A+ work on that one. A couple of more months at this pace and the caliphate will have taken one giant leap forward.
Brilliant analysis… let’s hope Obama gets back on track, and soon!
#14 morning in america
the only track Barry is on is to destroy this country in short order. The Libya ‘thing’ finally figured into his plans after he figured out how much it would cost the country. We are already broke. I have nothing against the Libyan people but I love the American people for alot of reasons and do not want them to have to go thru the coming crash. Crash of the currency, crash of gas/oil supplies, crash of food distribution…etc. Anyone with a lick of sense would not be doing this considering our state of affairs.
When you say ‘Let’s hope Obama get’s back on track’ I have to laugh. Please.
I mean “back on track” objectively speaking – in terms of what is good for America… but, as you suggest, the case can be made that he’s never been “on track” but has been off the rails since the start…