The Bright Side

Wednesday 2 June 2010 - Filed under Legislation + POTUS

I’m loathe to suggest that there might be a bright side to the oil spill in the gulf, but if there is, Peter Baker of The New York Times sums it up perfectly:

Now that engineers have given up trying to plug the leak and have turned their efforts to containing it until a relief well can be finished in August, Mr. Obama faces at least two more months of crisis management that will complicate his hopes of advancing his agenda in other areas. Every day he devotes to a spill that seems beyond his control, and every day it consumes attention in Washington, is another day that he cannot focus energy and resources on his own initiatives.

. . .

“This has hijacked his entire legislative agenda,” said Douglas Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who has written about Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was consumed by the Iran hostage crisis. “The White House felt they were on a roll. They were looking to be a new New Deal or new Great Society and they were just getting momentum going. Something this awful has sidetracked the agenda.”

It’s sad that such a catastrophe is the only thing that can slow the exponential bloating of both the size and scope of the federal government in our everyday lives.

2010-06-02  »  madlibertarianguy