Obama's Speech: Shrimp Etouffee in the Oval Office

Hoping to assure Americans that he has taken a leadership role on the BP oil spill, the president will don a bib tonight and eat a big plate of gulf coast seafood in the Oval Office complete with tartar sauce, gumbo made from veggies in Michelle's garden, and jalapeno cornbread - this according to an advance release of the president's address obtained by Facetwitch.

"Let me be clear. Jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron, Joe Biden is a complete moron, and I am not responsible for this crisis. That's why I've asked BP to open an escrow account for seafood lovers everywhere. I will also be creating a new position in my White House, a seafood czar to oversee the safety of fish and shrimp from the gulf. Bobby Thibodeaux is the former manager of a Red Lobster and a staunch environmentalist who once built explosives for the Weather Underground and believes in cap-and-trade. I am confident he will fit right in with my administration."

Later in the speech, in a rare moment of honesty, the president questions the need for the televised address in the first place:

"I honestly have no idea what you people want me to do. I've acted concerned since day one. I appointed fourteen commissions. I threatened criminal charges against BP, deflating the value of their stock by 50%. I've walked along the beach, picked up tar balls, and put off the endless stream of solutions from that Huckleberry Hound Louisiana governor. I went down there and stood in the rain. I even got seagull crap on my jacket. Now whose ass do I have to kick to get some credit?"

In all seriousness, I expect President Obama to step up the rhetoric for clean energy and increase the attacks on oil companies he would just as soon force into bankruptcy so he can bail out and run like GM. He will make it seem like we have two choices: invest in "clean energy" and tax the heck out of oil companies or continue down the road of the status quo where our environment is at risk and climate change is on the verge of bringing unparalleled disease and disaster. It's knee-jerk reactionism at its core, even if it comes two months after the accident, from a president who thinks the answer is to stop American drilling in favor of government-funded green jobs (which I'm sure can be unionized).

An American president concerned about the recovery of the gulf would keep politics out of the discussion until things stabilized rather than use a crisis to divide the country and take cheap shots at his political opponents. Then again, Obama has never seen himself as just an American president. As Mark Steyn recently pointed out, it's like he feels the job is beneath him. He's got better things to do, like impress the world. We'll see what he does tonight.

Attacking Republicans for supporting an abundant supply of affordable energy like coal and oil is much easier than taking blame for letting one of his biggest campaign donors skate on regulations to "drill, Barry, drill." I fear the actual oil spill will pale in comparison to the crisis Obama and the Democratic Congress will unleash on manufacturing and the middle class with their moratorium on drilling and overreaching, cap-and-tax response.

Maybe conservatives should have been a little quieter about the president doing nothing. Nothing from this president seems to be preferable to his involvement.