James Carville has publicly attacked the President for his lack of response to the spill. Other friends like Spike Lee have also criticized Obama as being too passive and advised him to publicly “go off” on BP. Bill Maher added “I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president.”
It appears that the White House is listening and sent out the President to go medieval on someone before polls reach irreversible levels. In his most recent interview, Obama stated “I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.”
This is either a new public stance on the oil spill or the final confirmation of a long rumored bias in the White House against the gentle creatures of Equus africanus asinus. [By the way, there are people in places like Henderson, Texas with a large number of asses to kick].
Of course, with the donkey as the symbol of his own party, the comment could be more prophetic than intended given polls showing a resurgence of the GOP.
I do not happen to be one of those critical of the President for a lack of shouting and posturing — though I do find his overall response to be overall poor. This reminds me of Michael Dukakis being criticized for not pounding the table after a remarkably moronic question from Bernard Shaw about his wife being raped. There is room to criticize Obama for his delay in going down to the Gulf and relatively few visits to the area — as well as the overall weak governmental response. However, I do not need a Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the desk to satisfy my inner angry self.
Even if you wanted more emotion, this type of comment would have been more powerful if you didn’t get the feeling that Axelrod is holding up a board reading “More Anger.”