Where’s the Competence, Libs?

RUSH: Ah, this is just too good. It’s just too good. Yesterday Obama said, ‘Plug the hole.’ The DC school district said, yes, we can, and went with more powerful condoms for the students. And then all of a sudden today we’re getting conflicting reports that the Top Kill method of sludge, mud, and cement may have worked just hours prior to Obama’s first press conference in 309 days. So Obama, just as he was getting ready to put on the scuba gear and plug the hole, British Petroleum appears to have done it. Obama a month late and a few million dollars short. Let’s never forget this, I don’t know what he’s going to do in his press conference about this, but I can guess that he’s going to try to take credit for it. (imitating Obama) ‘I told them to plug the hole. I said, ‘Get to it.’ I’m not going to take it anymore and today the hole got plugged.’ Well, that’s the way they think of themselves in this administration. But his role amounted to basically bad-mouthing the company while the company was struggling to stop the leak. It was his first big challenge, and he flunked it.

Now, all of you leftists out there who get all uptight here about it’s BP’s problem, ‘It’s British Petroleum, why are you jumping on Obama’s case, you limited government people, like you Limbaugh, you’re demanding government go down there and stop this, you have no credibility.’ Ah, ah, ah, ah. Wait just a second. You leftists out there gotta keep one thing in mind. By the way, Rush Limbaugh, you know that, telephone number 800-282-2882. One thing you leftists have to keep in mind out there is that your guy, this whole administration during the campaign campaigned on what? Competence, as opposed to the incompetence of the stupid Bush administration, you guys were the smartest ever. You were the ones we had been waiting for. You were the ones that had all this ability. You were going to fix everything; you were going to cause the sea levels to start sinking; you were going to stop global warming; you were going to cure every ill that is out there. And then here comes an oil spill, and you are powerless. All you could do is complain and blame British Petroleum. Meanwhile, British Petroleum tries a number of things. They’re still not sure yet if the Top Kill method worked, but it appears to have at least had some effect, enough for the regime’s leader to go out there and claim credit for it.

I looked this up with the Exxon Valdez spill. After 14 days, Bush 41 went out there and nationalized the effort to clean it up. Now, the news is out there today that this is the worst oil spill in American history. It may be. It’s not the worst oil spill in world history. The worst oil spill in world history was some odd 30 years ago, the Ixtoc, the Ixtoc I spill in Mexico which went on for nine months. Mexico is still there, the area of that oil spill is still there, the turtle nesting areas still take place and, by the way, the Exxon Valdez spill is cleaned up and everything is back to normal there. Now, in the America I grew up in, this is going to get fixed, too. We’ll handle this, this is not the end of the world, it’s not a disaster with no recourse, and plus we have the most competent, the smartest post-racial, post-this — I mean the best, unlike any politician we’ve ever seen.

If you’re going to portray yourself that way, if you’re going to portray yourself as able to lower rising sea levels, then you damn well better be able to stop an oil leak. Well, you can’t stop an oil leak in six weeks. All you can do is point fingers of blame at people and then try to move in and take credit when BP apparently comes up with a method that works.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Speaking of the oil spill, a column in the New York Post today by Kirsten Powers (she of the liberal persuasion). Her column was entitled, ‘Where was Plan A?’ and here’s the pull quote from the piece: ‘It also shouldn’t be a secret that no matter how many inspections and safety requirements you have, you can’t ever completely prevent disasters like this one. If you’re going to permit offshore drilling, be prepared to respond to a spill. If he promised us anything, Obama promised us competence. Instead, we’ve gotten the Keystone Cops.’ This is a body of thought that is starting to permeate throughout the political sector, including even people on the leftist side of things. There clearly has not been any federal presence here oriented toward solving the problem. There has been no ‘competence’ on display.

There’s just been a bunch of petulance, finger pointing, blaming, and demand (doing Obama impression), ‘Plug the damn hole! Just plug the hole,’ and as I pointed out yesterday: We don’t have a leader here. A community agitator and organizer is not a leader. You know, everything has gotten done for Obama throughout his life. Things have been taken care of. If he’s a C student in reality, he got an A or a B probably. There have been people around to take care of things. Now he’s in charge, and even though he promised all this competence, we don’t see any of it, and a lot of people are noticing. To the audio sound bites. Monday afternoon on the House floor, this is Steve Scalise, Republican congressman from Louisiana.

SCALISE: Our governor over two weeks ago has been asking for the federal government to approve a barrier plan to actually protect our marsh from the oil, and we’re not getting an answer from the federal government. All we’re getting is excuses. We don’t need a finger-pointer-in-chief. We need somebody who’s going to step up to the plate and actually follow the law and take charge of this and stop not only the oil from flowing, but let our local leaders do what they said they need to do, and they’ve gotten no response from the White House. They’re not getting the help they need.

RUSH: And Mr. Scalise was not finished. He kept on.

SCALISE: We need a quarterback on the field like the law says the president’s supposed to be. He’s not supposed to be the commentator in the booth. We’re tired of the excuses, Mr. President. It’s time to live up to your obligation under the law. Help us protect our marsh! If you don’t have a plan, we do, but you’re not letting us implement our plan. Get out of our way and approve our plan, otherwise you come up with your own, but this is inexcusable.

RUSH: And they don’t have a plan at the White House other than ‘plug the hole.’ What he’s referring to here is Governor Jindal wanting to build some sandbars — essentially, miniature islands — offshore that would soak up the oil before it got to the active shore. But they need federal permits to do this, and they have asked for federal permits to do this, and they have not received any answers whatsoever — and they’ve been very frustrated, and Mr. Scalise here is airing the frustration of many. In fact, you could say that Mr. Scalise and his quotes here could be almost word-for-word from anybody in Arizona. If you’re not willing to help us here, get out of the way and let us take care of the problem ourselves, which they don’t want to happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go back, April 23rd, 2009, the Charlie Rose Show, David Brooks of the New York Times is on, and they were discussing the competence of Obama. Charlie Rose said, ‘Do you think you can argue that being a community organizer was very good training for being a future president?’

BROOKS: The biggest shock to me, I thought the guy’s 47, the guy’s barely been in Washington, can he run an effective administration? Yes. I —

ROSE: And an effective campaign, too.

BROOKS: He has run a tremendously effective, efficient, managerial administration. That is the biggest surprise and I think the biggest story in the first hundred days. If he didn’t do that, if he didn’t have the essential level of competence, nothing else would matter, people would not trust him. But he is a competent manager.

RUSH: And this is David Brooks, one of the smart elites on supposedly our side discussing the competence of Obama, which today everybody is questioning. What competence? Where was the competence that they all promised us when it comes to the oil spill? The competence of lowering the sea levels; they’re going to cure every ill simply by virtue of Obama being present. And April 23rd, same show, here’s a montage of Charlie Rose and David Brooks talking about how smart Obama is.

BROOKS: This White House is very much an intellectual hothouse.

ROSE: Intellectual power.

BROOKS: The self-confidence and the intelligence. There are certain intellects which are like florescent, and the president’s one of them.

ROSE: He seems to be like Michael Jordan with 30 seconds to go, he wants the ball. He seems to be like Joe Montana with two minutes to go.

BROOKS: The e-mails say, ‘You’re like Michael Jordan,’ and Obama e-mails them back, ‘Just give me the ball.’

ROSE: I didn’t even know that.

BROOKS: Yeah, there you go.

RUSH: I’ll tell you, I feel like I need to wear a rubber suit listening to these sound bites for fear I’ll be infected by all the waste that’s being delivered.