Obama's Speech and the limits of the Presidency

Last Tuesday, President Obama gave his first Oval Office speech. While the subject was the Gulf oil spill, the real reason for the speech was to try to save his presidency. This effort was doomed from the start.

Obama's problem is that the country suffers from heightened expectations for what the government in general and the President in particular can do. The oil spill has been called Obama's Katrina but, in a way, he is a victim of Bush's Katrina.

After Hurricane Katrina, the federal government did as much as was possible as fast as it could be done. This wasn't enough for most people. Day after day the news anchors stood in front of flooded houses and reminded the country that New Orleans had not been fixed yet. Many people on the left spent enormous effort blaming the disaster on Bush - either because he allowed Global Warming which caused the hurricane or because he didn't spend enough money on the levees. Bush added to the expectations on his own. His White House never pointed out that they were not meant to be first responders or that the rescues began almost immediately after the storm ended.

Like Bush, Obama is a great believer in the power of government. Neither man would ever quote Reagan's joke about the scariest phrase in the English language, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

But there are some things that the government cannot do. It does not have the technology to stop an oil leak a mile underwater (not that BP's technology is doing such a great job). At the same time, there are things that the government could do. A 1990 law allows it to take over the clean-up effort but the Obama administration failed to do that. In fact, there have been several holes in the government's response. Obama's speech did not address any of those. He did not announce any new policy changes. His administration continues to outsource everything to BP while demonizing it and implying that it is not doing everything in its power to stop the oil.

That's why Obama's speech will be judged as a failure. It didn't change anything. The country still wants the leak stopped and that is still weeks in the future. Obama got BP to pledge $20 billion. That made today's headlines but it will be forgotten long before the oil stops leaking. Obama called for an energy bill - any bill - without giving any specifics. All of the pundits called him on his lack of anything concrete.

Without lowering expectations, Obama will continue to face the same problem daily for weeks - the oil continues to gush and the President has not done anything to stop it. A single speech cannot change that.