Obama's rhetoric seemed to have failed him this time or else it just doesn't cut it anymore.  His oil spill Oval office speech failed miserably.

After two months of mind boggling massive amounts of oil flooding into the Gulf and Gulf states, suffocating, damaging, and destroying the sea, the land, marine life, wildlife, the fragile ecosystem,  human lives and livelihoods, after almost 60 days of non-stop disaster, this president can only rehash what the public already knows and fall back on appointing a commission, blah, blah, blah.

What an utter disappointment.

Instead of showing the passion of leadership for the common good, Obama continues to act like the moderator of a panel discussion.

From Scarecrown at Firedoglake:   "...its strange to hear the President of the United States tell an anguished, worried people facing destroyed livelihoods and desperate for leadership and a plan of action that prayer and faith are our best hope for stopping an ongoing catastrophe and preventing the next.

"Does anyone believe this catastrophe continues because of a lack of faith in a better future, a shortage of American strength and resilience?

"Why don’t we start by assuming the America people can understand basic physics. They intuitively grasp that we can’t keep punching holes into highly pressurized formations three miles beneath the ocean and not expect at least one of them to blow up with catastrophic consequences and then be the devil to stop. They understand that if corporations engage in inherently dangerous but highly profitable activities, they’ll inevitably cut safety corners, ignore risks and cause a disaster that kills people and causes massive damages. People get that.

"So any statement a President or any leader would put before a public whose intelligence and judgment they respected would have at least these two parts:

"(1) Here’s the plan for fixing the immediate crisis, and here are the risks it might not work and what we’ll do about that.

"(2) And here’s my challenge for the future: "We don’t have to take this. But if we want something different, we have some very hard work to do, and we need to get on with it. Here is what we must do, and here are the people and the failed ideas that stand in our way. We have to fight them if we want a different future. And that’s what I propose to do; here’s my plan, and I want your support."

"I don’t know why our President can’t say it that simply, but apparently it’s not his style, or not what he wants or believes, or maybe he and his advisers just don’t know what to say or do. But someone needs to tell him, and now, that calling the nation to faith and prayer is not a substitute for a plan and it’s not leadership. It’s a sop."

And 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.

"The whole point of a prime time Oval Office speech (transcript here) is that it announces something big. On that score, Obama failed right from the start.

" 'I have established a National Commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place.' " A commission! So much for "going big."

"Look, maybe I'm just feeling cranky tonight. There's nothing wrong with an investigating commission, after all. And I happen to think that Obama's reaction to the spill has been substantively pretty reasonable. But if you're going to give a big Oval Office speech and that's the best you have to offer, then let's face it: you don't have much to offer.

"This speech felt entirely by-the-numbers to me. He told us about the spill. He told us the best minds in the country were working on it. He told us BP would pay for it. He told us he was setting up some commissions. He said he wanted an energy bill of some kind. Then he told us all to pray. It felt like he was reading off a PowerPoint deck."

And from Robert Reich: "....his words hung in the air with all the force of a fundraiser for your local public access TV station. Everything seemed to be in the passive tense. He had authorized deepwater drilling because he “was assured” it was safe. But who assured him? How does he feel about being so brazenly misled? He said he wanted to “understand” why that was mistaken. Understand? He’s the President of the United States and it was a major decision. Isn’t he determined to find out how his advisors could have been so terribly wrong?

"Tomorrow he’s “informing” the president of BP of BP’s financial obligations. “Informing” is what you do when you phone the newspaper to tell them it wasn’t delivered today. Why not “directing” or “ordering?”

"The President distinguished what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico from a tornado or hurricane because they are over quickly while the leak is an ongoing crisis, lasting many weeks and perhaps months more. He likened it to an “epidemic.” But the real difference has nothing to do with time. Tornadoes and hurricanes are natural disasters. Epidemics occur because germs mutate and spread. The spill occurred because of the recklessness and ruthlessness of a giant oil company in pursuit of profit." 

Zach Carter at Alternet writes that the BP speech is just another refusal by Obama to lead: "Faced with the gravest environmental catastrophe in American history, it is clear that Obama believes sweeping change is necessary. It is equally clear that he is unwilling to fight for that change.

"Tonight's address, instead, is indicative of a now well-established pattern in the president's governing strategy. Obama does not advocate for reforms, he advocates for consensus, and his rhetorical insistence on fixing a "broken" Washington and entering a new "bipartisan" era has rendered his administration utterly subservient to the very problems he seeks to transcend.

"But Obama has steadfastly refused to stick his neck out on almost any policy during his presidency. Passing a health care reform bill was the goal, not securing the public option that could rein in long-term health care costs. Passing the stimulus was the goal, not passing one large enough to actually break the back of the recession. After tonight's speech, it's not clear what, exactly, Obama is fighting for on climate change, but he is adamant about not alienating "either party."

"Leaders make a clear and convincing case for their policies, based on how those policies will play out in the real world. When someone opposes those policies with irrational or absurd arguments, a leader explains to the world why that opposition is unwarranted. Obama has been reluctant to confront his opponents at best, and his refusal to stand firm for sound environmental policy in the face of the BP oil catastrophe betrays him as a leader with no policies. In other words, he has allowed himself to become exactly what the John McCain campaign called him in the last desperate weeks of the 2008 contest: a mere celebrity.

"There are limits to what a U.S. president can accomplish, particularly when one political party entirely devotes itself to blocking his agenda, regardless of the effect on the citizenry's well-being. But a leader does not simply refuse to fight when faced with difficult odds.  But a leader does not simply refuse to fight when faced with difficult odds. And despite the small-bore reforms outlined in tonight's speech—a new chief for the regulatory agency responsible for overseeing Deepwater Horizon—Obama explicitly backed away from anything resembling a fight over energy or environmental policy.

"This response to BP's malfeasance might be forgivable had it been Obama's first capitulation in the name of political expediency—environmental disaster or no, he could credibly claim to be withholding political capital for other endeavors. But we've already watched Obama give away critical provisions on the economic stimulus package, health care reform, Wall Street reform, climate change and even subsequent legislative efforts to create jobs (he is now, timidly and belatedly trying to make the case for a jobs bill in small forums). There is no longer any reason to make excuses for him. Time and again, this president has simply refused to fight for any controversial legislative act. This is not an effort to gain greater political leverage. This is Obama's "leadership" strategy. Tonight's speech, for all its minor merits, was a tremendous failure of leadership."

Finally, this harsh but telling comment from Greg Moses at Counterpunch: "All by himself and speaking from behind what is often billed as the most powerful desk in the world on Tuesday night, the President of the United States imploded his Presidency.  Finally, the only people who make any sense any more are those who said from the very beginning that this man would not stand and deliver."