I've never been more proud of my President in my whole life.

He's stepped up to the plate, is making BP pay for EVERYTHING (which they should) and reassured Americans that the government is behind them and are doing what they can to help, both in the immediate future as well as the long distant future.

My fave points were:

1. Insisting on new research for Clean Energy - it's about time someone stepped up to the oil barons and said, "We need to break our addiciton to your product," Which as Americans need to do.

2. Holding BP responsible for all costs. That's just common sense.

3. Sending 17,000 Coast Guard folks in to help contain and clean up the spill. Obviously no-one else was going to do it, so at least someone is taking steps to get it started.

4. Showing respect and sympathy for those folks already affected in Louisiana. It's pretty easy for us to all talk, blog and ponder what to do - in the meantime, these folks are legitimately in serious trouble. Their livelihoods are in jeopardy and I was glad the Prez recognized them.

5. Insisting on more safety on these oil rigs - In the news, they had all the oil companies speakign to congress - in one part, they said that there was 40 pages on how to deal with teh media in Exxon's handbook, and only 5 pages dedicated to safety - and teh guy to call for troubleshooting had been dead for 5 years. THIS is responsibility guys? Come on!!

Anyway, I loved it, I'm extremely proud of Obama for keeping us in the loop and I love his plan. I'm all in!!

The United States has not had this much back-to-back catastrophe in this short a period of time since the Great Depression. Aside from announcing an immediate solution to the Gulf disaster--which was unlikely if not impossible--what Americans were looking for from the President, I believe, was reassurance that someone is in charge and that ordinary people are not helpless--that there are things we can do to help.

I felt that the speech fell strangely flat on both counts and that it may have had the effect of alarming people even more than before. Better no speech, I think, than a tepid, tentative speech. Usually Obama is a master of rhetoric--if there's one thing he does excellently, surely giving a speech is it, but now, when we all really needed an inspirational speech, what we got was a list of how much boom is deployed, how many boats, and a suggestion that we all pray. Like, whoa, this is bad. Pray. It's gonna be a big fat mess. But I'll get money out of BP.

Really? Pray? That was the best he could come up with right now? That hit me like the old joke about what to do if a nuclear bomb is dropped on the U.S.:

"Bend over, place your head between your knees, and kiss your butt good-bye!"

Americans are on serious disaster overload, and are sick to death of incompetent corporations hoovering up all the money while the rest of us struggle and Washington goofs off and goes for the quick photo op. We needed to hear a concrete plan to involve the country in a new energy program, some serious volunteer opportunities, and a vision of a better U.S. down the pike.

We didn't get that. Well, nobody can be on his or her best game all the time. But I though the President actually looked a little scared and a little overloaded. He probably is. But we shouldn't see that in a speech meant to reassure and inspire.

I think people are sick of feeling helpless and discouraged, and the speech didn't help alleviate that.

I voted for Obama and think he's a brilliant man, but I'm discouraged by the gridlock in Washington and his habit of trying to accommodate everyone and accomplishing nothing. Like the saying goes, if try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody.

President Obama is in a very difficult position especially when making speeches. He knows that every word he says is going to be dissected and analyzed on ever US news channel; his wording in the speech, his mannerisms and his tone are all under the microscope and it’s therefore almost impossible for him to come up with a speech that will satisfy the pundits.

As I noted in a question I asked on Mahalo today, 50% of the people of America would have derided the speech even if he had offered to pay every citizen of the damaged area $1,000,000 – this is the gargantuan challenge President Obama and his speech writers face.
As for the actual speech, and trying to be objective as possible, here are my main points I picked up on:
• Passion – apart from one or two words there didn’t seem to be any passion from President Obama – it was if he simply was reading a statement about the latest ice-cream flavor rather than the biggest environmental disasters this country has ever seen. I personally wanted to see anger; anger at BP, anger at the politicians who are holding up an Energy Bill, and anger at the people who are criticizing his every move and making him focus on publicity rather than getting things fixed.
• Flow – President Obama is normally a brilliant orator, and that is one quality that has set him aside from some previous Presidents and helps re-build USAs reputation outside of the US. This was strangely missing in this speech, and it was obvious that he was reading the speech. This was a huge surprise to me, especially as this is one of his most important speeches ever. The lack of confidence and the slightly hesitant manner in which he spoke the words said more than the speech itself, and you almost wondered what his motives were, and why he was so nervous.
• The content – it was a little disappointing that he used much of the speech to simply tell us what we already knew – he had an opportunity to really press forward and explain what exactly he was going to do, and how he was going to do it – even if this was simply to assemble the best experts in the world to deal with the problem. I understand that he could not give us solutions, as no one knows how to solve the problem, but he should have assured us that experts would be working on solutions.
• About BP – I was interested to hear that he was going to instruct BP to create an Escrow fund of $20b and this was good, however I felt he should have been a little more critical of BP, and he should have stated exactly what he expects from future operations of BP. I realize there are international consequences of being too critical of BP, but he is the President.
• Presidential – I’ve heard a lot of commentary about how he should have been more ‘commander in chief’ like, both from Republican and Democrat critics, but I wonder how does one go about doing that in a situation like this? It’s not a war – he cannot order bombings, or counter-strikes, he simply can promise that experts will work on the problem.
• Final thoughts – this was neither a great speech or a poor speech, and to be honest I don’t think he really should be judged on the speech, but what he actually does from now – he’s secured $20b from BP as he has promised, and must continue to apply pressure to BP to ensure that firstly everything is cleaned up and there are no environmental and economical problems in the long term, and secondly that he gets major assurances from BP and the oil industry that there will be major changes in the way the oil industry operates.

It’ll be interesting how this plays out and in a way it gives President Obama the chance to pass Energy Bills and press forward his clean fuel agenda; it will be a test of his Presidency and will define how he is seen once he is no longer President – is he the President who changed America, or the President who failed?

Failure and until the well is capped it will be a failure. Next $20,000,000,000 will not be enough to pay for all the damage done. And to have the payout as 3 -2 -1.25 billion is ridiculous. This is a Company that has a profit of about 18 billion a year they can afford more. There should not be a dividend until this is cleaned up but JP Morgan owns 27.7% of the Company. You invested and your investment was bad. You cannot bankrupt the Company or there will be nothing for cleanup but this is insuffifient. He is being weak and BP knows this will go away over time and has played him. As always a great speech but no real action behind it. In addition his moratorium will raise the price of gas at the pump in this Country by about twenty five cents a gallon. And the Coast Gaurd would have gone in without his speech.

nothing just Bla..bla..bla, it is obvious to everybody that BP will be paying all the damages, so why should you talk about it again and again like you are making them to pay! they will pay and they know that! your job is to stop leaking and as soon as possible! He should have said something about recovery plan...ohhh I forget, he does not have any recovery plans!

He's no Jeremiah Wright!