Fareed: Presidential Pony Show

Presidential Pony Show

Obama needs to lead, not emote.

BY FAREED ZAKARIA

I AGREE WITH VIRTUALLY EVERYONE out there who's complaining on camera and in print that our response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been just terrible. Except that by "our" I don't mean the government's or the country's but ours--the media's. Reporting on a massive technological breakdown that is having huge environmental consequences, our focus over the last week has been on whether the president is offering enough public displays of emotion?

This demand for a show of presi-

dential fury is not coming from a few

obscure people. New York Tirnes colum-

nists want to see Obama angry; the film-

maker Spike Lee is demanding that the

president "go off"; Democratic strate-

gist James Carville wants "rage." Whole

cable shows have been devoted to the

question. One Fox anchorwoman com-

plained about what Obama was wearing

when he visited the Gulf Coast. Reflect-

ing the media frenzy,

the Today show's Matt

Lauer informed the

president that his crit-

ics were saying, "This

is not the time to meet

with experts and advis-

ers, this is the time to

... kick some butt."

Have we gone mad?

We face monumental

engineering challenges:

to plug a hole in the

deep sea, separate oil from water, clean

up the coastline, and restore the gulf.

But let's forget about talking to experts

and seeking technical solutions. That's

for nerds. Let's put on battle fatigues

and kick some butt. Commentators

have been begging for some symbol of

Obama's resolve, as when George W.

Bush stood at the World Trade Center

site after 911 and promised revenge

for the attacks. If the president were

to invade another country would that

show he cared?

The fact is that the federal govern-

ment has a limited capacity to "plug

the damn hole," as Obama reportedly

said in his best effort to muster up some

anger. When Adm. Thad Allen was

urged at a press conference to push

BR the oil company responsible for the

spill, out of the way, he responded with

a question: "[And] replace them with

what? ... To work down there you need

remotely operated vehicles; you need to

do very technical work at 5,ooo feet. You

need equipment and expertise that's not

generally within the ... federal govern-

ment in terms of competency, capability,

or capacity."

The government can help protect and

clean the coastline and coastal waters.

And it has deployed people in force-

17,500 National Guards-

men, plus 20,000 other

people and 1,900 boats

that are helping in the

effort. It's laid out +.a

million feet of boom to

protect the coastline, all

of which adds up to the

largest response to an

environmental disaster

in American history.

What else should the

government do?

Calls for more government are coming from the most unlikely quarters. Carville's wife, Mary Matalin, argues that the cleanup is very much the federal government's responsibility. Yet in

response to the only comparable U.S.

oil disaster in recent history the Erron

Valdez spill, the Georp HINI Bush admin-

istration, for which she worked, specifi-

cally denied that the federal government

bore any responsibfity for the cleanup.

In fact, Ttansportation Secretary Sam-

uel Skinner declared that government

involvement would be'tounterproduc-

tive." Conservatives who have long urged

limits on the federal government are now

suddenly discovering their inner FDRs.

To read and watch the coverage of the

Exon Valdez is to be transported back

to a different time. There was no effort

to implicate Bush in the accident, few

calls for him to emote more, no great

clamor that he magically "do something"

to get the awful images off the television

screen. In fact, he never traveled to see

the oil spill. This time the president has

canceled a trip to Asia, has held more

meetings on this topic than on any oth-

er since the AfPak review, and speaks

almost exclusively about this tragedy.

Government officials hold briefings on

the topic daily, even when these are sim-

ply designed to convey the impression of

action. It is government as theater.

Meanwhile, the unemployment num-

bers are looking grim, the prospect

of contagion from the European debt

crisis grows, our allies in Asia are dis-

heartened, the Taliban remains on the

offensive, and tensions with Iran and

North Korea loom. These are issues

on which the federal government has

specific and unique responsibilities.

But what the hell. The president of the

United States has now trash-talked against the CEO of BP, is wearing more casual clothes, and has announced that he intends to "kick ass." Thank goodness for the free press!