While anything from uninspiring to boring has been used to define President Obama’s primetime speech on Tuesday, Gail Collin’s has a great column on it, I believe that the speech was not just flawed because it was unexciting, but rather because it was reveals fundamental disconnects from the Obama Administration. First, the rhetoric of the speech rang something along the lines of “we won World War II, we landed a man on the moon … so we’re going to create a
National Oil-Spill Commission, a Gulf-Coast Restoration Plan, and a Nobel Prize Physicist to solve all of our future problems”. For a candidate who could so well capture the angst of American voters, inspire visions of a better future in even the harshest critics, President Obama has been lacking. Collins and other columnists have criticized Obama for not being tougher on BP, for not openly “declar[ing] war on the oil companies” as she put it, yet that is only half of the problem. While Obama is only failing to openly sympathize with the anger that American voters have expressed, shown anywhere from the Tea Partiers to the Pennsylvanian Democrats that kicked out Arlen Specter, he is also failing to produce adequate solutions to the problems.
In his speech, the President proudly reminded the country that Dr. Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy is a Nobel Laureate and former head of a National Science Lab, someone who nobody outside of the Washington punditry circle has ever heard of, would lead an all-star cast of academics to clean up the oil spill. For a Gulf region and the rest of the country that has helplessly watched oil gush out of the well and creep up on the shores, faith in academia running to the rescue is low. Immediately following President Obama’s scientific insights, he ordered the creation of a Gulf Coast Restoration Plan led by Secretary of Navy Ray Mabus who was described as a “former governor of Mississippi and a son of the Gulf Coast”, which basically means washed-up career politician. The Restoration Plan is going to inject some of Obama’s favorite bureaucratic nimbleness and ingenuity into solving the problems associated with the economic collapse of the Gulf Region. Finally, in the span of about two minutes, Obama launched his third blue ribbon panel, this time a creatively named “National Commission” to “understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place”. Alas, the President continues to amaze and impress the country with his ability to utilize all of the best resources in Washington, the smartest minds who will invariably conjure up solutions for the country. As candidate Obama, we didn’t see this technocratic Ivy League favoring leader emerge very often. When he picked his star studded cabinet, pundits praised him as creating a new “Team of Rivals”. Yet, for a year and a half now, Obama’s unwavering trust in the ability of academics and battle-hardened politicians continues to amaze a public skeptical of the elitists whose machinations just two years ago were responsible for the Wall Street collapse and financial meltdown.
Of course, writing as an Ivy Leaguer myself might cause people to question the genuineness of the criticisms. Even at Harvard, President Faust’s Commissions on anything from Diversity to Social Spaces have wholly underwhelmed the relatively activist student body. Even at a place where students are extremely engaged in activities in and around the campus and community, Presidential Commissions lack any sort of longstanding appeal. The Ivy League mindset of engaging the most esteemed experts and engaging in a fact-finding report, followed by a 10-point step by step proposal is largely failing to catch steam at Harvard. If President Obama continues to attempt to run the country in that way, he will continue to face the same calls in the media.
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