Every so often, the worst Administration in history does something to get this lazy blogger to take time out of his day to marvel at the sheer hypocrisy, venality, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do-ness and overall low-down dirty trickery of this group that is incompetent to administer our government. Here is my first OHO ! or Obama Hypocrisy Observation:
Some of you may have noticed that Obama decided to release 30 million barrels of oil from the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve). Three links let you pick one of my favorite blogs with the story. As an editorial notes:
The spigots have been opened just twice — in 2005 by President Bush, who released 11 million barrels after disruptions from Hurricane Katrina, and in 1992 by President Bush Sr., who tapped 20 million barrels in the wake of the Gulf War. President Obama’s release — which is far bigger than either of those two emergencies — is supposedly in response to disruptions from Libya, which isn’t even a U.S. supplier. It isn’t our crisis.
This had an immediate effect on the oil markets, dropping the price of oil over 5%. In all likelihood, that will lead to lower gas prices at the pump. Political, ya think ?
But that isn’t what got me worked up. I expect every decision from the Obama administration to be made for political gain. What got me was learning that in addition, he waived the Jones Act to allow foreign ships to transport the SPR oil*. The Jones Act requires that cargo shipped from one US port to another be carried by US vessels that are US owned with US crews, a protectionist measure we can debate, later. “Waivers have been granted in cases of national emergencies or in cases of strategic interest.”
Transporting SPR oil is NOT a national emergency that requires waiving the Jones Act. So why did Obama do it? After all, this is the same guy who has restricted oil drilling from day one and is doing his best to move us away from a carbon-based economy to a green economy, whatever that is, the merits of which we can debate, later.
The hypocrisy is that oil from evil corporations is bad, but oil sold by the government to reduce energy costs is so good that getting SPR oil to market is a national (reelection) emergency!
*You may recall that a Belgian firm DEME gave the Jones Act as the reason their offer to help clean up the Gulf of Mexicooil spill was declined. It is unclear if that was true.
July 8, 2011 at 10:35 am |
lol – if you call this the worst administration in history, what do you call the Bush Administration? Heaven?
July 8, 2011 at 11:02 am |
Bush was not heaven, but by any objective measure – economy, terror attacks and national security – Obama fails miserably. Even in his moralistic high-ground areas (think interrogating captured terrorists on US warships before releasing most of them), Obama is a huge hypocrite and a failure.