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Obama's Oval Office Speech

It's been a while. I've been bad about Blogging. I'm going to try to be better. It'll probably last about a month before I'll see something shiny and get distracted again. But, to prevent that, I'm giving myself a few homework assignments. I feel like I owe you a couple of Blogs. So, stay tuned for a post on:

1) That Almost-Perfect Baseball Game
2) The LOST series finale (Not gonna lie, I've pretty much already exhausted this topic elsewhere already, so this will probably be a lot of cut & pasting from a Facebook thread discussion I got myself involved in.)
3) Perhaps I'll do a post on the spill itself if I don't cover it today.
4) And... maybe something about some product advertisements that have been bothering me

Ok, so here we go. The speech:

I actually highly doubt that I have any type of special insight that you haven't already heard elsewhere, especially if you pay attention to this kind of stuff. But I did notice a couple things and I do have some small exposure to the energy market that some of you may not have.

One thing that struck me about the speech were all the "God" and "prayer" references. First of all it just seemed an odd tactic to me. I'm not sure what he (or his speech writer/team) was thinking. I mean, the people who would be most moved by these words probably don't really like Obama very much to begin with. Yeah, I know that's a generalization, but we do have a hyper-polarized electorate, and religious people tend to be linked with the right. So, I doubt he won very many hearts and minds there. And on the other side, I live in Missouri but I could practically hear Bill Maher screaming at the television last night. I don't think he won very many of my liberal atheist friends over, either. And from a completely neutral political stance, I'm not sure faith in a higher power is the answer America has been looking for to clean up the spill. We'll be ok and get through this because God is on our side? We need actions, answers, and plans... not feel-good fluff.

This appeal to faith extended not just to a higher power, but to the faith that green energy is going to save us, and that this answer is just around the corner if only we have the determination to reach for it. I want other options to fossil fuels as much as anyone else does, and we definitely need to pursue wind, solar, geo-thermal, nuclear, and every other possibility that is out there. But the honest fact is that those alternative energy sources are not ready to step up and replace oil yet. And we're not going to get there any time soon.

You may not know this, but my company is a licensed wind turbine distributer. In the last year, I've taken courses on wind enery and I have attended several renewable energy conferences. Aside from just being something I'm personally interested in, my company has been trying to find a place in the market. I'm not going to tell you that I know everything. But I can tell you that it is obvious to me that at this point the industry is very young, and it would be extremely unwise to sabotage our current methods and cross our fingers in hope that we'll have the solution as quickly as we'll need it.

This is not something as simple as putting a man on the moon. That's right, I said as simple as a man on the moon. I'd put solving our energy dilemma right up there with curing cancer. You can't just throw money at it and force it to happen.

Finally, and I admit this might just sound picky and silly on my part, but I thought the whole "I'm going to talk to BP tomorrow" thing was a little odd. Really? You're going to talk to them tomorrow? Then why are you on TV today? It's been almost two months, and you're going to come on television for your first ever address from the Oval Office and say, "Ok guys, I got this... I'm totally gonna talk to these guys tomorrow." Like I said, maybe that's just me.

Aside from anything we may feel about how this catastrophe has been handled, I think part of the problem is simply a product of the times we live in. Obama's got it rougher, I'm sure. We get our news and analysis from 24-hour cable and the internet, which obviously never sleeps. There was a time when I'm sure Americans were getting some new information from a President on TV. Well, anyone who cares has been paying attention to a story as it unfolds, and is pretty much already aware of not just the main points but also of some pretty nuanced analysis. We're already watching the game, we don't need a President to come on and tell us the score. And this is new. And the President's speeches need to evolve to acknowledge that.