Over at Forbes, Brian Wingfield writes about something I noticed yesterday, as well, while listening to the Jason Schnitt Show on the way home (taped delay in Raleigh, tuned in using iHeart Radio), which had excerpts from PeBo’s speech. Though, Wingfield is a bit more charitable with his headline: Is Obama Claiming Credit for Gulf Spill Solution?
I happened to catch President Obama’s remarks on CNBC this morning, and one of the commentators made a smart observation about the president’s rhetoric, in particular the use of “we” when referring to the stoppage of the leak. As long as oil was flowing, the White House seemed to couch it largely as BP’s problem (though he did say that before the recent cap “we” were only capturing about 25,000 barrels a day) . But now that it has stopped the Obama administration seems to be taking some of the credit, deserved or not.
While it was flowing Obama was slamming and slurring BP (at times, deservedly), between golf outings, vacations, and campaign stops, of course. But, now, let’s look at a bit of PeBO’s speech (bold by Brian)
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the situation in the Gulf. As we all know, a new cap was fitted over the BP oil well earlier this week. This larger more sophisticated cap was designed to give us greater control over the oil flow as we complete the relief wells that are necessary to stop the leak.
Now, our scientists and outside experts have met through the night and continue this morning to analyze the data from the well integrity test. What they’re working to determine is whether we can safely shut in the well using the new cap without creating new problems, including possibly countless new oil leaks in the sea floor.
Now, even if a shut-in is not possible, this new cap and the additional equipment being placed in the Gulf will be able to contain up 80,000 barrels a day, which should allow us to capture nearly all the oil until the well is killed. It’s important to remember that prior to installation of this new cap, we were collecting on average about 25,000 barrels a day.
Well, at least he isn’t using his favorite word, “I”. He continues on in this mode for quite some time, see the link for the full transcript, including the Q&A section. I suppose, if we were being charitable, we could chalk this up as simply Obama’s way of speaking, and perhaps saying “this was all of us American’s working hard.” Switching between “they” and “we” can be confusing, especially when speaking without Secretary Teleprompter. Consider
Now, in the meantime, obviously we’ve still got a big job to do. There’s still a lot of oil out there, and that’s why we’ve got more skimmers out there, there’s better coordination on the ground along the shorelines, there’s still going to be an enormous cleanup job to do, and there’s still going to be the whole set of issues of surrounding making sure people are compensated properly, that the $20 billion fund is set up and is acting expeditiously.
So we’ve got an enormous amount of work to do and people down in the Gulf, particularly businesses, are still suffering as a consequence of this disaster. But we are making steady progress and I think the American people should take some heart in the fact that we’re making progress on this front.
Hmm, I guess not. If he had let the highlighted sentences stand alone, that would have made sense, but, the additions highlight exactly how much of a narcissist Obama actually is. Consider that final sentence, which, in essence, is saying “hey, look at me, look how great I am.” We’re rather used to that.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU
Taking credit, or “Royal” we?
You know Rick, you have a point. Obama could have been using the “royal” form of “we.”
Of course, I didn’t see him saying much about “we” helped cause the leak to begin with. I didn’t hear him say “we” prevented or stalled clean up efforts. I didn’t hear him say “we” used law enforcement to keep people from cleaning up their own beach front properties.
I’d be willing to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt in using the “royal we,” if it weren’t always used in the sense of “look at what we have accomplished” and never in “look what we screwed up.”
http://stevebussey.com/wp/2010/06/sunday-funnies-vol-ii/
We are not amused! :D
My wife and I just finished watching “The Tudors” on some network or other, and I’m a big fan of Kenneth Branagh’s “Henry V”*, the second paragraph’s use of “we” and “our” seems to come directly from that style. Either that or Chris Muir over at Day by Day is writing his speeches for him. (If you’ve not visited DbD lately, Chris is having his anual fundraiser, go by and hit the tip jar.) If Prezbo starts his next State of the Union address by saying, “My goodly subject, draw nigh that you might know our mind fully on the state of the relm.”, well that’s what my grandpappy used to call an Indicator.
*(Yes, I know it’s Shakespear, but Branagh did it so well.)
Pretty impressive for a guy who doesn’t know his backside from deep center field. Probably runs at the sight of a crescent wrench.
I can say that my biggest concern with this entire scenario is the chance of the entire bore hole disintegrating into a mess.
With oil and gas screaming thru the existing pipe casing it is acting as an abrasive which is degrading the pipe.
Pulling oil from 15,000 feet and moving it up near the surface where pressures could cause more internal rupturing in the bore hole casing where the existing oil and gas then could channel into the subsurface around the borehole. This would almost certainly lead to countless subfloor oil leaks as the pressures build and find their way thru the existing sea floor to the exposed ocean above them.
Without being privvy to the pressures that are building up I can’t say this is a certainty but the fact the president even metioned it is cause for concern which means BP is stressing to the Government that their biggest concern with this disaster is well bore degradation and the possiblity of opening up new sub surface naturally occuring oil and gas leaks that would officially put this entire operation out of control.
Essentially that could mean it would leak for decades. Pouring as much as 100,000,000 bbls of oil into the ocean which was the estimated size of the field they tapped into.
Or 4.2 billion gallons of oil. A staggering amount.