Politician as Personal Savior
It seems that people (at least in the media) are angry that Obama has neither magically plugged the oil spill nor sufficiently beaten up BP for incompetence. One is almost inclined to pity Obama, after all, this isn’t his fault. Getting angry about the oil spill won’t actually solve anything.
On the other hand, Obama deliberately campaigned as the personal savior and redeemer of this country. He cultivated the notion that the power of the government, embodied in the person of the president, could solve any problem. Well they can’t solve this problem. To his credit, Obama has so far recognized that BP is better equipped to handle this problem than the U.S. government. He should have recognized that his glorification of government power would backfire, but he didn’t. He is reaping his own foul harvest.
