I used to have a calendar on my desk titled, “The 365 Dumbest Things Ever Said.”  I do not need a calendar this year, because President Obama has set the ultimate new standard.  Following is his statement today regarding the crisis in Japan from the White House Blog:

One of the things I wanted to do on the show was, as people are filling out their brackets — this is obviously a national pastime; we all have a great time, it’s a great diversion.  But I know a lot of people are thinking how can they help the Japanese people during this time of need.  If you go to usaid.gov — usaid.gov — that will list all the nonprofits, the charities that are helping out there.  It would be wonderful for people to maybe offer a little help to the Japanese people at this time — as they’re filling out their brackets.  It’s not going to take a lot of time.  That’s usaid.gov.  It could be really helpful.

During a time when the Middle East is on fire, when the Stock Market is collapsing, when gas prices are soaring, when Japan is literally suffering a meltdown, Obama has been busy filling out his NCAA tournament bracket and planning his trip to Brazil.  (These were followed after his golf game over the weekend.)  He has shown zero leadership on this issue, and it has become too obvious to ignore.  Today his press secretary literally told reporters they should check with their own staff to find out what is happening with regard to that nuclear power plant in Japan.

The nuclear power plant fiasco in Japan is a world altering event.  No matter how this turns out, nuclear energy will never be viewed the same anywhere in the world.  Usually, the press can be counted on to overplay the disaster card in any situation to get more ratings.  In this particular case, even CNN has been slow to pick up significance of the problem.  If recent reports are accurate, this plant is melting down and is already so toxic that anyone trying to fix the problem will receive a lethal dose of radiation.  The problem is that this plant stopped producing electrical power almost immediately and then the tsunami destroyed the backup diesel generators.  That meant they only had eight hours of battery power available to run the pumps.  This happened last Friday, so it appears that all this time they have been trying to prevent a meltdown by a handful of brave workers trying to pump water by hand.   In the meantime, highly radioactive nuclear fuel rods have been exposed to the environment.   Even if this gets no worse, this is a very devastating event.  The pictures of Japanese helicopters desperately trying to “save” these reactors by air drops of water are horrifying.   This situation is completely out of control.

Obama did not cause this problem, but he dropped the ball big time with regard to providing leadership.  As a result, we have a nationwide run on Potassium Iodide pills and a whole lot of conflicting information.  This was an opportunity for Obama to truly take charge and appear Presidential.  Because he failed to do that, he has probably thrown away any chance of getting re-elected.  (We can only hope.)

It no longer matters whether nuclear energy is a great or terrible idea; it is now a political nightmare.   It will be political suicide to support nuclear energy for a long time.  Whether he deserves it or not, Obama is going to be the nuclear meltdown President.   His energy policy is in complete shambles.  He finally figured out that nuclear energy was the only alternative energy source that had a chance of replacing coal, oil or natural gas.  That is why he morphed from opposing nuclear energy to at least pretending to embrace it.  He seemed to want to appear to be in favor of nuclear energy, while simultaneously making sure it never actually developed.  Whether you think nuclear power plants are a good idea or not, they weren’t going to be built anytime soon.  We can’t even build the Oakland Bay Bridge in a reasonable period of time; my guess is that it will take about 20 years to get a nuclear power plant built.   In the meantime, gas prices are going through the roof, and they’ll no doubt get worse.  There will be national outrage if gas prices reach $5/gal, which seems quite possible, if not probable.   Suddenly, the drill-baby-drill crowd is looking pretty darn good.   In addition, that black smoke coming from all those coal fueled power plants look pretty good, too, compared to the pictures we are seeing from Japan.  After Obama leaped over to the nuclear energy side, he got knocked off his perch by the tsunami.

Expect to see a lot of reports similar to the following:

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-near-misses-nuclear-plant,0,85570.story

I am sure a lot of really bright people are more than capable of explaining why nuclear power plants remain a great idea.  They may even be right.  But ultimately, the winds from Japan are blowing radioactive particles over the United States.  While the actual risk is quite small, with regard to the future of nuclear energy in the United States the fallout will be severe.

Obama will be known as the Nuclear Meltdown President who failed to provide leadership one too many times.  Unless something even worse happens, this will be the signature event of his administration, and it is a really ugly picture.

TDM