The Indictment!

Friday – June 11, 2010

The Indictment!

I was listening to Sean Hannity on the radio yesterday and, as I was listening, my brain was working in overdrive. I wanted to write about how easy it is to criticize those who are on the front line. It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback and without offering solutions you only become one more talking head.

I don’t presume to know everything, nor do I presume to know all the issues but, what I do know is something is broken.

As I was listening to Sean, a caller called in, who was supporting the President and was, in my opinion, talking the talk of a partisan. He said, “Is it a right thing or a white thing” in response to Sean’s defense of his point. First of all, we are all defending what we think is right. The issues are no longer simple nor are they black and white; there is a whole lot of gray area and that could be part of the problem.

We cannot listen to those who defend the incompetence and the lack of leadership that this president is guilty of. This is not because he is black and I am white. It is because the President is guilty of incompetence. I would say, if George Bush was the President and this oil spill occurred under his watch, he would have talked to the Chairman of BP by now on day 53.

The President is now calling for a meeting with BP officials. This is another meeting and this is another session where the professor will teach at a weekend seminar. This is another opportunity for the President to look like he is engaged and look like he is doing something. This effort is transparent, because it is too late in coming.

The administration is now looking at the legal side and prosecuting those at BP for negligence. This is all fine and good, but we cannot forget that oil is still leaking into the Gulf. We cannot forget that this oil might ruin the natural habitat in the low lands and marshes for decades in the Gulf. We cannot forget that the affected states have been screaming for help and the government has been slow to react.

When a crime occurs and the guilty are looking for alibis, the wheels of justice start to turn and an indictment is served. Part of the indictment is a description of the crime. Have we asked; why we didn’t have the technology to cap a well 5,000 feet deep in the Gulf of Mexico? Have we asked why the government didn’t require that technology be in place in the event of a disaster of this type? Why are we not going after the environmental lobbyists and activists that said we must drill deep in the ocean to protect the shore line and local habitats? Have we asked the question why we are forced to follow the environmental movement’s demands?

The indictment should also allege that the administration is using this spill as way to move legislation called Cap and Trade that will tax every aspect of carbon based energy. This bill is dead, but there will be a new one now, coming under a new name. Just today, the Senate will vote on Resolution 26, giving the EPA unprecedented powers to enact and govern over every environmental issue. The EPA is not made up of elected officials, but they will determine many aspects of our lives going forward, because it is now a bureaucracy. Just today the press in London is saying the President is using BP for political purposes.

The President said he was on top of this matter over a month ago. He was standing in the rain with those he was consulting with. He wanted to get all the views so he would know whose A** to kick. If this President had been on top of this matter, as he said then, we would have had a different outcome on day 53. The indictment should be served and it should be for incompetence under fire.

You cannot fault BP entirely. You cannot fault those who died as a result of the explosion. You cannot fault those who were working at the time. We can fault the lack of technology. We can fault the government for, again, being slow to react and we can fault a president who said he would make the earth clean again. He said he would bring people together and he would be transparent in the process. The only thing that is transparent is the lack of honesty and the lack of competence and intelligence on the part of many and I include the President. At least George Bush knew after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf he had to cut the RED TAPE to get things done. This is what experience tells you to do when you have bureaucrats in charge and bureaucrats solving a problem that can be rectified by a simple Presidential order to cut the red tape and think outside of the box.

We, as citizens, must cut the creation of red tape where ever possible. The red tape is created by the elected officials who are part and parcel to the incompetence in our government. If we vote the right people into office (this is not a right thing or a white thing) we can curb the growth of bureaucrats and those that require their existence to enact their agenda.

Ronald Reagan said, in remarks to the students at Moscow State University, on May 31, 1988: “Every once and a while, somebody has to get the bureaucracy by the neck and shake it loose and say “stop doing what you’re doing.”

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: 146 days from now we have an opportunity to do what Reagan said about the bureaucrats “stop doing what you’re doing.”