"A Crisis Gone to Waste"

By Jonah Goldberg

"According to Frank Rich, the "principal mission of the Obama presidency" is to prove (in Lincoln and Obama's words) that "the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves." And on that score Obama has been wildly successful.

The greatest damage from the Deepwater Horizon disaster (and yes, even with the hype-deflation, it's still a disaster) has been from government. The drilling ban imposed by the administration, against the counsel of the sort of "sound science" Obama usually sanctifies, has been devastating to the region, costing thousands of jobs and untold millions in lost revenues and taxes. That's definitely something the people couldn't have done better for themselves."