Jump to content

Obama takes questions from the press


clearvision

Recommended Posts

I agree with Geee. I was hiking so missed the press conference. Now I see I didn't miss anything -- just as I suspected.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Obama: Critics 'don't know the facts'

 

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 5/27/10 1:25 PM EDT

 

 

Tackling an environmental crisis quickly becoming one of the most serious political threats to his presidency, President Barack Obama insisted Thursday that critics of the federal government’s response to the oil spill in the gulf “don’t know the facts.”

 

“Those who think that we were either slow in our responses or lacked urgency don’t know the facts. This has been our highest priority since this crisis occurred,” Obama said during a rare news conference in the White House East Room. “We understood from day one the potential enormity of this crisis and acted accordingly.”

 

Amid escalating complaints of buck-passing between the well’s owner, BP, and federal officials, Obama also said that he understands that, when it comes to ending the spill, the buck stops with him.

 

“In case you were wondering who’s responsible? I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure everything is done to shut this down,” Obama said, directly addressing criticism that he hasn’t been more personally involved.

 

“There shouldn’t be any confusion here: the federal government is fully engaged and I’m fully engaged,” he said.

 

Obama also tried to address critics of the government’s role by making an unequivocal declaration: the federal government is heading up the relief and cleanup response.

 

“The American people should know that from the moment this disaster began the federal government has been in charge of the response effort,” he said. “Make no mistake: BP is operating at our direction.”

 

If there were any doubt of the political difficulty facing Obama in confronting the underwater disaster, it was right there on the TV screen. Fox News, CNN and CNBC all showed Obama’s news conference with a split-screen or inset shot of the pipe gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Obama also took some blame for shortcomings at the federal agency that oversees oil drilling, which granted BP the permit for the Deepwater Horizon drilling, but said there’s no evidence that corruption and other problems at the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration have continued on his watch.

 

Interior Secretary Ken “Salazar came in and started cleaning house, but the culture didn’t change at MMS and I absolutely take responsibility for that,” Obama said.

 

When asked about the news Thursday that MMS chief Liz Birnbaum left her post, Obama acknowledged that he didn’t know the details of how that came to be.

 

Addressing another concern of some critics, Obama also showed some public emotion about the spill and tried to signal his personal connection to the crisis which jeopardizes tourism and fishing along the Gulf coast.

 

At one point he said that his daughter Malia asked him one morning while he was shaving: ““Did you plug the hole yet, Dad?”

 

“Every day I see this leak continue I am angry and frustrated,” the president said. “This is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about….And it's not just me, by the way. You know, when I woke up this morning and I'm shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?

 

"Everybody understands that, when we are fouling the earth like this, it has concrete implications not just for this generation but for future generations,” Obama said, adding, “I grew up in Hawaii where the ocean is sacred.”snip

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37875.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would so like to thank all of you for listening to that so that I didn't have to. My BP(blood pressure) was saved :)

My sentiments... I don't have the stomach for even a small dose of "O" these days.

 

I just started to turn on FOX but knew that I'd have to endure clips of lofty BS from the Poser in Chief and opted out.

 

“Those who think that we were either slow in our responses or lacked urgency don’t know the facts.

Yea Asshat... we're too stooooopid to figger hard stuff like this out fer ourselves.

 

hatfieldsbrooks.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SrWoodchuck

The "facts" that, a majority of Americans none of the "Tea Partying" critics, were smart enough to know; are being manufactured as we speak, fitted & patched like Billy Mays "Mighty Putty." [Why wasn't that used on the spill?]

 

In the basement of the White House:

 

.....'mid the cracking whip and clank of chain, the legal trolls sweat to forge the perfect pieces of the Sestak bribe lie, and spill prevarications.....

 

....while this listing Ship 'O.....wallows 'cross the breakers, awaiting the next wave to roll o'er the bow....

 

.....the wheel house abandoned by the Cap'n [practicing his bunker shots on the astroturf & ballast, below decks]....

 

......and then...a froggy voice bellows from the First Mate's berth, "....will ya f***ing keep it down out there? I'm tryin' ta sleep here..."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • 1711724425
×
×
  • Create New...