Barack Obama's Oval Office speech and reality

On Tuesday 15 Jun 2010 Mr. Obama gave his first address to the citizens of the United States of America. An Oval Office speech is an important tool of the POTUS the lights the revered place the lack of audience or interruptions, just the president and the "buck stops here" desk.  How did he use this grand pulpit?

Well to say he failed miserably would be quite the understatement in this writers opinion. While fact checks of the speech on both Huffington Post and Fox News both point out many factual errors in the speech relating to the oil spill. But, what has been overlooked in my opinion is the gross misstatement of the amount of reserves we have and the lack of anywhere else for us to drill the POTUS stated "We consume more than 20% of the world's oil, but have less than 2% of the world's oil reserves." which is just untrue with massive reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, ANWR and the untapped Bakken Formation, he continues " And that's part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean - because we're running out of places to drill on land and shallow water" which is truly epic lie (no way to spin it it's a LIE). A recent graphic from Classical Values shows some of the areas that we aren't allowed to drill in.  We should be drilling on land in ANWR and more in the Dakotas. Shallow water drilling is prohibited or restricted all along the coasts of America.

He then bemoans sending a billion dollars a day to foreign producers of petroleum, while placing moratoriums on domestic production. Pushing to pass cap and trade to raise already skyrocketing energy costs in a weak economy is just insane. Wanting to "get off fossil fuels" is a noble goal, but to try and force this through taxation is shortsighted and unrealistic. One barrel of oil produces only 19 gallons of gasoline but it also provides for hundreds of other everyday items most people take for granted. So while we are trying to find a new way to drive, fly, and ship goods maybe we should ramp up drilling inshore and on land.

In closing, I think the President failed once again to accept help from countries with far more experience in dealing with this issue, while once again referencing his Nobel Laurent Stephen Chu (who hasn't stopped or slowed the leak). President has already been established by both former presidents Bush and Clinton to waive the Jones Act, to open the door for other governments to step in and provide aide in this issue. To stop all oil production because of one accident ( albeit a massive one) is like grounding all air traffic because of a crash, or outlawing cars after an interstate pile up.