I'm from the Government and I'm here to help!

The Oil keeps spewing in the Gulf and the clean up seems to be dragging on and on with no sense of urgency.  The Christian Science Monitor identifies the top 5 bottlenecks.

1. Coast Guard red tape
2. The Jones Act
3. EPA
4. Lack of coordination between skippers and spotter plans
5. Lack of leadership from the Feds.

Looking at the list it's now common wisdom that Obama is over his head in dealing with this crises.  To me the most frustrating this has been the whole disaster could have been severely reduced it wasn't for the EPA.

"Three days after the accident, the Dutch government offered advanced skimming equipment capable of sucking up oiled water, separating out most of the oil, and returning the cleaner water to the Gulf. But citing discharge regulations that demand that 99.9985 percent of the returned water is oil-free, the EPA initially turned down the offer. A month into the crisis, the EPA backed off those regulations, and the Dutch equipment was airlifted to the Gulf."

This is insane! After a month, the damage has been done the wildlife has been destroyed. The EPA helped exacerbate the largest Environmental disaster in American history.

GE CEO Immelt slams Obama

According to the financial times Immet was addressing a group of Italian CEOs.

"Mr Immelt also had harsh words for Barack Obama, US president, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” US economic recovery. Business did not like the US president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry."

He latter hedged his comments by stating they were made at a private dinner and taken out of context.  Its understandable that he didn't want to expose GE to the ire of this administrations overzealous regulators, but we need more leaders to speak out and explain why a new course is needed.

Respect and Leadership

Leaders are not born they are made. The private sector understands this lesson. Look at all emphasis companies place developing their people.

"If our country is going to get back on track, we need to redevelop confidence in and respect for our leaders and institutions. This means first and foremost electing and appointing people who command this respect by virtue of their bona fide achievements and not simply their paper credentials. In recent years, far too many people with prestigious degrees and titles have made far too many horrible decisions that have caused great harm to Americans everywhere. We need people who have shown through their actual performance in business, the military, government or academia (preferably in multiple areas that pertain to the problems we face) that they can and will handle pressure and act at all times with integrity and good judgment. "

Great credentials might get your foot in the door, but you have to produce. Those achievements help earn you the respect of your peers. It is this accrued respect you leverage when making the tough calls as a leader.
People who disagree with you still execute because they respect your judgment enough to give your plan a chance.

Contrast the private sector with Washington today:

• We currently see a Supreme Court nominee with virtually no experience in the law, outside academia and the White House, and none as a judge.

• We have the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee considering the Elena Kagan nomination focusing ad nauseam on her handling of the gays in the military issue years ago at Harvard Law School, and largely disregarding issues that are of real significance to Americans today -- such as her views on the implications of the Constitution's Commerce Clause for the new health care law.

• In House hearings on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, we have noted experts in petroleum engineering -- Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey -- making determinations as to which well-drilling method was preferable.

• We have a treasury secretary with no private sector experience and who had trouble filing an accurate tax return.

• And last year we saw our president -- with no experience running a business -- deciding to oust the CEO of General Motors.

Obama too brilliant to fail

The immovable object is the conviction on the part of some who are also his critics that he  is the smartest man who has ever held office, and is therefore too brilliant to fail. Citing his "shimmering intellect," Richard Cohen is at a loss to explain why he hasn't done anything with it.

Intelligence is not synonymous with leadership. Leadership it is character based and acquired through experience no one is born with the skill.  Looking at Obama's background we scant examples of any leadership.  His academic records from Columbia & Harvard are sealed.  His stint as a community organizer didn't involved managing or directing large scale project but mostly sitting in meeting's and delivering speeches.  As a State Senator he mostly voted present and avoided tough issues.  Ditto for Senator Obama who's years were spent mostly campaigning for President.  So now here we are at present day and his policy's have not worked.

An irresistible force is meeting an immovable object on the field of perception, and causing an odd sort of storm. The irresistible force is the growing idea that Obama has failed as a leader on a number of items: "Engagement" has failed; our allies are angry; the oil keeps gushing, his ideas are job killers; the recession goes on.
His party lost three big elections under his guidance and seems poised for a drubbing. The harder he pushes the country's laws leftward, the more its politics bend to the right.

Clearly we need to change course and I think the country will do so in November.

Spitzer: Hero or Hack?

Living in the NY, Spitzer is a familiar face; he receives copious amounts of air time on local news outlets. He castes himself as an Eliot Ness-like character crusading against the villains of Wall Street and the media eats it up.

Truth be told, he is a publicity hound and his self righteous blather is devoid of any substance. Unfortunately in New York because he has a (D) before his name he is a virtual lock to the next Governor. Even this pro Spitzer puff piece concedes the point.

Indeed, Spitzer does display an ugly side--a relish of confrontation, a lust for the spotlight--as he gropes his way towards an understanding of the potential and limits of his growing power and visibility. Here and there, Spitzer and his cavalry of legal jousters come across as power-crazed bullies. In one instance, two Spitzer lawyers give an executive 24 hours to plead guilty, threatening if he doesn't to arrest him at home in front of his child and pregnant wife. In another, an exec is sent to jail despite his bond with his severely disabled daughter.

Of course this type of behavior is not just excused but praised because the rich are inherently evil. Imagine the outcry if he was this tough on violent criminals? So what philosophy underlies his prosecutorial zeal and what would his policies as Governor look like?

As Masters points out, Spitzer himself has written that the future of the Democratic Party depends on its ability "to promote government as a supporter of free markets, not simply a check on them," and to hew to "a vision consistent with trust-busting and other progressive market measures first enunciated early in the last century by Theodore Roosevelt." Which is exactly what Spitzer has done.

What does this mean when applied to policy? If government has to "support" free market what is that but the same misguided Keynesian economic model that has animated liberal policy for the last 60 years? What trusts does Spitzer plan to take on? Standard Oil & AT&T are long gone products of the industrial age. In the information age no company no mater how large or profitable is safe from competition unless insulated by government regulations. Case in point witness the struggles of once mighty GM. Further largest most socially damaging monopoly is K-12 education. The government Education bureaucracy is an agrarian age institution that is in desperate need of competition.

Like [Teddy] Roosevelt, Spitzer doesn't see himself as an antagonist of the free market, but rather as its defender against those who would game and corrupt the system. And he is quite explicit about the fact that he sees this not just as good policy, but good politics--particularly for Democrats, and for himself.

The way to insure that no one "game & corrupt the system" is to allow producers not to be hampered by overbearing government regulation that forces them to restrict choice for consumers. Consumers in the market place respond much quicker to events than any legislative or prosecutorial act of government ever could. Spitzer may or may not understand this, but he is right that a significant constituency does exist for his anti growth view point.