What Did You Think of The President's Speech? Did He Quiet Your Concerns about the Oil Spill?

I watched President Obama's speech tonight after having it hyped on the cable news shows all day. Afterwards, I listened to the pundits on FOX, MSNBC, and Charlie Rose on PBS. It was interesting that all listened to the same speech and had such diverse views about how well he got across his message. MSNBC was the most strident in their remarks and I was left thinking, "With left-leaning friends like these guys, the President doesn't need enemies." FOX was not highly critical, but didn't spend much time commentating, so anxious they were to get to their next show, and the roundtable on the Charlie Rose Show thought he did a pretty good job of reaching out to the different audiences he was speaking to. None of this matters, however, because we individually will make up our own minds about whether he answered some of the pertinent questions such as these:

• when will the leak be stopped,
• how much injury has been inflicted on the Gulf,
• when will we have even the beginnings of an energy policy,
• will we continue to drill in deep waters off our shores in fragile ecosystems,
• how can we, as a nation including politicians on both sides of the aisle, come together to accomplish goals of abundant but clean energy to save the environment on which we are dependent to sustain life?

Personally, I think President Obama continued to demonstrate that he is solid and not panicking in what likely will be the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history. He did not play the blame game even as some talk shows hosts were calling for him to act more like a dictator. He did try to reassure the country that the leak will be stopped, that BP will be held accountable, and that the administration is deeply involved and working hard to solve the problem.

On the other hand, I thought he missed a huge opportunity to come before us and ask us to demonstrate that "can do" attitude we have shown throughout our history when we have needed to unite and work together as a nation to solve serious problems. We have felt helpless during this oil spill to do anything, and I don't know about you, but it has given me more than a little pause to watch all the so-called experts work on it for 57 days without being able to solve the problem as we watch the ecosystems distruct. Perhaps President Obama did not want to attempt too much in one speech, and perhaps he will come before us again soon stating in no uncertain terms how important a sustainable energy policy is. Perhaps, too, he will ask us to do something we can do - pressure our representatives to forget the partisan bickering and work together.

Climate change is real, and we continue to make it worse as we depend too much on sources of energy that emit green house producing gases and too little on cleaner energy. This disaster in the gulf should be a wake up call, and it has been to many of us, but if ever there were a time for the president to use his powers of persuasion about the seriousness of our predicament, it is now. He and we must not let this opportunity, as horrible as it has been to watch oil gush into the ocean and kill wildlife and destroy jobs, pass us by. We have let energy companies, especially oil and coal companies, bypass the safety measures they should have had in effect, so desperate we are for energy. These disasters such as the West Virginia coal mine gas poisoning and this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will continue if we don't enact an energy policy. We have been guilty of overuse of energy, and we probably will have to make some changes that might not be pleasant in the short run, but it is our duty to be responsible instead of helpless bystanders. We actually can do something - we can support President Obama's efforts to put in place a workable energy policy for our nation.