DAMNED IF YOU DO OR DON'T

I see the President's speech last night on the oil crisis got mixed reviews: to his supporters, he showed he was on top of affairs; to his detractors, exactly the opposite---he is floundering.

This is totally predictable. the right wing had opinions ready to propagate even before the speech was finished---prefab hatchet jobs like Sarah Palin and a host of Neo-Cons were ready, willing and able to smear the speech. To be fair, I think some of the more liberal-minded also had their supporting commentaries ready in advance.

In this era of rabid partisanship, positions have for some time been set in concrete on almost all political subjects with no apparent willingness to talk to see if common ground can be found.

It is now Obama's war, Afghanistan. It is his recession, especially the jobs (or lack thereof) market. The financial mess is his. And it certainly is his oil crisis since it occurred on his watch.

Let's get a little perspective. The beginnings of many of these problems go back, not only to G.W. Bush but to Clinton and Reagan, as well. Go back to Reagan, the supreme capitalist who encouraged the free market and minimal controls. Clinton had a "laissez-faire" attitude: don't touch a thing while things are going so well. W. encouraged this kind of thinking in market and financial terms, plus he added the expansionary democratic imperialism where we propagate the American virtues of free enterprise and democracy at a killing cost to us, both literally and figuratively. And cronyism between government agencies and industry is far from new.

At the time many of these programs seemed to make sense, although, personally, I was against going into Iraq when we had Sadam Hussein in a box amd should have concentrated on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and other trouble spots. I am a defender of the free market system but not uncontrolled or unregulated free market. You need safeguards and deterrents to control the unprincipled and greedy.

I've said this before: I like Obama, but sometimes he is too cool for his own good, too much the rationalist and needs to demonstrate some emotional passion. He has been trying to do that recently. but his enemies refuse to notice.

I'm off with my wife at the end of the month for our usual summer in England. (She's an American citizen but still has feelings for where she started.) It will be interesting to see America from a different perspective. I love this country, warts and all, but sometimes it is good to step away to see things here.

I wish our President Godspeed and good luck as he pursues the rekindling of the economy and tries to deal with the crisis in the gulf. We live on an island in that gulf, so, believe me, we have a vested interest in seeing it cleaned up. I'll keep watching and praying...for progress in cleaning up B.P.'s mess and hoping the job market shows dramatic improvement. Then we can all start to breathe a bit better.