The Left Bashes Obama's Oil Spill Speech

(June 16) -- President Barack Obama must have known nothing he could say about the BP disaster in his first Oval Office speech would satisfy his conservative critics. He was right about that. But he might not have expected the reaction from the left to be so harsh.

"JUNK SHOT," screamed this morning's headline atop The Huffington Post, a reference to one of the failed attempts to plug the gushing oil well. "What was the point?" HuffPo's Jason Linkins wondered. He dismissed Obama's speech as nothing new -- short on specifics and long on sentiment.

Among liberal pundits, "short on specifics" is the most common -- and most mildly stated -- complaint.

"Yes, President Obama was short on specifics, but offer many specifics, as was done with the health care reform bill, and the critics whine that it's too long to read," Alan Colmes wrote in an AOL News column today. He was one of the few liberal commentators to wholeheartedly praise the president's address. (Click here for more AOL News op-eds.)

In contrast, here's the review from Kevin Drum at Mother Jones: "What a terrible speech. Unfair? Maybe! I mean, compared to Sarah Palin's (literally) incomprehensible burbling on Bill O'Reilly's show afterward, it was a model of straight talk and reassurance. But that's a pretty low bar."

From Keith Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all."

Chris Matthews, Olbermann's co-host on MSNBC's post-speech report, has been mocked for saying after a 2008 Obama campaign speech, "I felt this thrill going up my leg." Last night, the thrill was gone. "I don't sense executive command," Matthews griped, comparing Obama to President Jimmy Carter of "malaise speech" fame.

Mediaite columnist Philip Bump likened the president to a different legacy -- challenged Democrat.

"Tonight we saw the worst of the calculating Obama. It was Michael Dukakis, onstage during his presidential debate in 1988, calmly elucidating the intellectual argument against the death penalty," Bump said in an AOL news op-ed. "You could practically see Obama's bullet points written on a piece of paper. "

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait complained that Obama's appeal for a new energy bill never touched on "the central point, which is that dumping carbon into the atmosphere creates enormous long-term environmental risks." Instead, by leaving the door open to ideas from all sides, Chait wrote, "he's saying he just wants some kind of bill."

"There's a giant glob of oil in my Kool-Aid," True/Slant blogger Japhy Grant complained. "Like many of the young voters who helped catapult Barack Obama to the White House, I have a growing sense that the President (my President) is hopelessly out of touch." Japhy described the Oval Office address as "an 18-minute litany of toothless platitudes delivered with all the obligatory cheer of a 5th grade book report."

Obama did fine with the "big picture" stuff last night, said Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown, but he failed to show he's "deeply, viscerally engaged in the messy process" of managing the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

Perhaps last night's most telling takedown of Obama -- at least in terms of popular culture -- came from Comedy Central's Jon Stewart. He opened "The Daily Show" with a faux rebuttal to the president's plan for the gulf (actually a pre-buttal, since the show was taped shortly before the speech). Then Stewart laid out the comic case that -- far from lacking executive muscle -- Obama is becoming power-mad. Don't miss the big finish, featuring Eric Cartman from "South Park" and Frodo from "The Lord of the Rings."