Nation better off with Obama at helm

Steve Metz, Henderson

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 | 2:04 a.m.

It was not hard to figure out after the Republicans admitted they were going to say no to everything President Barack Obama wanted to do during his tenure that they now blame him for the oil spill and cleanup. Does anyone remember what it was like during the Bush years, and the disasters President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney left us?

Banks and Wall Street were on the verge of collapse. Wars were going badly, jobs were being lost at a staggering rate, there was Katrina and an energy policy that was decided after secret policy meetings between Cheney and the senior management of oil industry executives, including the CEO of BP.

Now we are adding jobs. Banks and Wall Street are on firm footing, wars are being drawn down, the economy is slowly getting better — but the decisions made at those secret energy meetings are still being kept secret from America’s eyes.

Obama has been far from perfect, but imagine if we still had a Bush/Cheney-type Republican platform under a President John McCain, hellbent on decreased regulation of banks, Wall Street and the energy industry. This nation, although far from where it needs to be, is monumentally better off now that we have a thoughtful president in place, someone who thinks logically in America’s interest before he acts.

Do we really want to go back to the days when conservative ideas ruled and created the kinds of disasters Obama has been asked to fix as our president? Isn’t it time we have a real energy policy that in a relatively short time creates an America where we do not need foreign oil? “Drill, baby, drill” is not an energy policy. It’s a policy to continue to make the same mistakes we have been making for decades — that only lead us to continued war.