Carville Continues Slap of Obama's Response to Oil Spill, Calls it Political Stupidity

Cue the Flying Pigs! The "ragin Cajun," James Carville appeared on Good Morning America today and continued bashing Barack Obama's handling of the BP oil spill this morning,saying that his lackluster response was politically stupid.

The Democratic strategist, of whom it has been reported begins every morning with a conference call that includes ABC Host George Stephanopoulos, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel among others, said  thee "political stupidity is unbelievable,  The president doesn't get down here in the middle of this. ... I have no idea of why they didn't seize this thing. I have no idea of why their attitude was so hands off here"

Its nice of Carville to notice.  One of the major criticisms of Obama since his inauguration has been his hands off approach designed to protect his hands from being soiled with criticism. This came up during the stimulus bill, cap and trade and the Health and trade bill, when the President was criticized by his own progressive support for not assuming leadership in the development of the bill's parameters.

True, Barack Obama cannot plug the oil leak himself but as James Carville says in the video below, there are plenty of things he could have done to appear sympathetic and to give an aura of being on the case and showing leadership.

"The president of the United States could've come down here, he could've been involved with the families of these 11 people" who died on the offshore rig, Carville said. "He could've demanded a plan in anticipation of this."


"It just looks like he's not involved in this," an angry Carville said on "GMA." "Man, you got to get down here and take control of this, put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving. We're about to die down here."

Truth be told, the President is not a man who is an upfront leader unless it is a "show" that serves his own political interests, he is afraid of getting his hands dirty and assuming part of the blame.  Until the possible trip this coming Friday, he has not spent much time by the gulf to assure the "common folks" that he is on the case and feels their pain, nor has he shown leadership by traveling to Arizona to look at the border trying to understand WHY they passed the state law he dislikes. But when he thought he had a guaranteed win, he found the time to travel overseas, to try and get his hometown the Olympics, or to accept a Nobel Peace prize, or even to go to Egypt and make a speech to the Muslim World.

Its sad that President Obama, who billed himself as a unifier, cannot show leadership and compassion to his own countrymen when they are facing a crisis.