Obama Points a Finger at GOP

From The Wall Street Journal:

President Barack Obama, facing political heat from both right and left over his response to the Gulf oil spill, blasted Republicans on Wednesday for what he said was a loosening of regulations on industry at the public's expense.

Mr. Obama did not blame the GOP for the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. But he attacked what he said was a Republican philosophy in the past decade that had "gutted regulations and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight."

Typically, Mr. Obama confines his most partisan attacks to Democratic fund-raisers. At one such event last week, he said Republicans were like a teenager who had driven the family car into a ditch and were now demanding the car keys back.

But Wednesday's comments came in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in which Mr. Obama also drew attention to the Gulf spill.

Mr. Obama said Republicans hold a "sincere and fundamental belief'' that government "has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges.'' The administration of President George W. Bush believed that "if you're a Wall Street bank or an insurance company or an oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences for everybody else,'' Mr. Obama said.

The administration's public statements come as the oil spill has become a defining political issue in an election year—with television images of oil gushing into the ocean and washing ashore threatening to overtake the president's agenda.

White House officials, who have held their tongues while Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has criticized the administration, are beginning to express their frustrations.

In his speech, Mr. Obama used the oil spill to argue for congressional action on long-stalled, climate-change legislation, and for his own proposal to increase taxes on oil companies.