Our Blood, Our Sweat, Our Tears, Their Oil

John Ransom
Our Blood, Our Sweat, Our Tears, Their Oil

Obama moved on from incompetent to reckless when he released 30 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve in a bid to save the summer tourist season.

But he told us he would do that in his first prime-time press conference.

"That whole philosophy of persistence, by the way, is one that I'm going to be emphasizing again and again in the months and years to come as long as I'm in this office. I'm a big believer in persistence."

I would agree. No one knows how to double-down on a mistake better than Obama.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner assured everyone that the administration’s decision to release 30 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve wasn’t at all political. But he quickly reminded us that the decision was made in an attempt to cover another political mistake by Obama.

From Reuters:

"It's really as simple as this: there's a war in Libya, costs between one and two million barrels a day in lost output, I think 140 million barrels off the market so far," he said in response to a question at Dartmouth College, where he spoke on a panel.

"Reserves exist to help mitigate those kinds of disruptions and we helped to organize a coordinated global international response to help ease some of that pressure," he added.

Oh. It’s the war in Libya that’s the problem. Maybe admitting that Obama is prosecuting a war in Libya is a sign of progress, because the administration told us recently that there was no war in Libya. They told us it was just a time-limited, scope-limited, kinetic military activity.

If it’s a war that’s a problem, I have a suggestion for them: Perhaps the administration should “organize a coordinated global international response to” end the war in Libya.

You know?

I mean since they are organizing the “coordinated global international response” in prosecuting the war in Libya that caused the disruption in the first place.

What was the slogan? No blood for oil.

Soon Obama will be asking the country for more shared sacrifice, in a parody of Churchillian prose, by telling us that he can only offer us “blood, sweat, tears and oil.”

Our blood, our sweat, our tears, and Saudi, Brazilian and Canadian oil.

Would it be too much to ask for one (1) policy to come out of the administration that tries to leave the country better off than we were before the administration took over?

We have an energy policy, a foreign policy, a housing policy, a jobs policy, a banking policy, a healthcare policy, an environmental policy.

These same guys trot out a new policy every 30 days, to little effect.

We have economic policies in place that racked up a record debt and bought us nothing; we have rising inflation; we have slowing growth with no jobs recovery; we have a healthcare policy that’s increasing costs and regulatory burdens, not decreasing them; we have a housing market that’s going in the wrong direction; we have a banking policy that’s ensured that no money is lent, despite taxpayers funding a huge rescue of U.S. banks; we have an energy policy that’s made us more dependent on foreign oil, not less dependent; a policy that’s assured that our energy security is weaker not stronger.

In practically every field of government endeavor we are much, much worse off than we were two years ago.

I’m not asking for Obama to get everything right. But he could start by getting one (1) thing right.

Start with getting out of our way and letting us just live and work. Or propose a budget that gets…um…one (1) vote. Or enforce our laws.

There’s a great deal of room for improvement. It wouldn’t be that hard.

Because what he’s been doing so far, just ain’t right.

It’s reckless.