George Rebane

[This is a transcript of my most recent KVMR 89.5FM commentary that was broadcast earlier this evening.]

Competence, complexity, or complicity.  Earlier this week President Obama fired his commander of the Afghanistan war, General Stanley McChrystal.  The president had every right to fire his general, and in this case the general gave the president cause to replace him.  But commentary surrounding this historic dismissal mostly missed a very important point – was there any substance to the general’s criticisms of Obama and his Washington national security staff?

President Obama has surrounded himself with the largest cohort of far left ideologues that includes the smallest number of people with any experience in the private sector of any president on record.  Only about 8% of his senior staff has business experience, the rest are former career politicians and government lawyers.  For other presidents this fraction did not dip below 50%.

And this staff was prepared for bringing about a fundamental transformation in the world’s leading capitalist country.  What was he thinking when he planned to nationalize healthcare, take over major private industries, revamp the country’s energy policy, and stimulate the private sector with an explosion of the government sector and a stifling increase in national debt?

The Gulf oil crisis is another matter that makes thinking voters wonder if they did the right thing in 2008.  The president postures angrily and claims the federal government is in charge of disaster management and relief.  Yet the world knows that the feds have no capability to do anything to that oil-spewing wellhead at 5000 feet.  Obama put an admiral in charge of the effort, and watches him do nothing for two months – the poor man is not even smart enough to request the lifting of the Jones Act so that we could more than double our fleet of oil skimming ships, ships being offered by foreign countries.  The admiral pleads that no one has asked him for extra skimming ships.

While the world offers help, we have a 2×4 with a face painted on it charge, and a chief community organizer in Washington who knows no better.  Or does he?  It does turn out that lifting the Jones Act will let in scores of foreign ships not manned by union members.  And then there’s that little matter of receiving over $70M from the unions to get him elected.  Meanwhile the world waits and wonders.

Then we saw our chief executive impose a six-moth drilling moratorium with all the forethought of a third grader.  Gulf coast businesses were immediately impacted and started laying off workers and shutting their doors.  Million dollar a day oil drilling rigs started negotiating long term contracts with Brazil and other foreign oil nations – when these rigs leave, they won’t be back.  This stupidity was overturned in court, but Obama vows to appeal the verdict.  Meanwhile we have a moratorium piled on a disaster piled on a recession piled on the administration’s promise of “skyrocketing energy prices”, making bad go through worse to impossible.  Go figger, is this guy that incompetent or does he have an agenda?

There’s more; back in Afghanistan his stated promise to start pulling out US troops in July 2011 is causing some real serious noodling by the Afghanis that McChrystal was wooing to beat the Taliban once and for all.  We need the support of the indigenous people, but they are thinking ‘Hey, if I help them and they leave in July of 2011, I will get my head cut off in August.’  Over the last six months Obama had a chance to step back from that date many times, and everybody thought he would correct that mistake by now.  Instead he blew another opportunity last Wednesday during his change of command speech in the Rose Garden.

We all know that he had no experience when he took the job.  But you’d think that Obama would at least have picked up a little knack for the position in a year and half.  Instead, he is following the advice of his ideologues to foist another disaster on the country in the upcoming cap and tax energy bill.  You know, another one of the bills they have to pass before we can read it, and find out how it will fundamentally transform America.

For those of who may consider this assessment a bit harsh, I would kindly refer you to the just released Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. 

I’m George Rebane, and I expand these and other themes in my Union column, and on georgerebane.com.  The opinions here are mine and not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.