On Monday President Barack Obama named the last members of his commission to investigate the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. On Tuesday he announced that on Wednesday he "will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness." Why appoint a commission or even have a meeting if the verdict is already in?

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Because in his desperation to undo the political damage done by his poor response to the spill so far and to move on to what he really believes is important, Mr. Obama had to switch with breakneck speed to act as judge, jury and corporate executioner and quickly jump to how he can take advantage of the crisis to advance his far-left agenda.

In his speech Tuesday night, the president went directly from his unilateral verdict against BP to talking up his newly appointed commission saying, "I have established a national commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place." Proof that he does not want answers; he wants cover for doing what he has wanted to do all along - over regulate industry, kill jobs and (of course) raise everyone's taxes and energy costs.

For almost 2 months, President Obama has done virtually nothing to help the people of the Gulf Coast except try to explain why he has done virtually nothing to help the people of the Gulf Coast. He has attended Democratic fundraisers, he has played golf, he has hosted parties, he has eaten a lemon-lime snow cone and he has made excuses why he hasn't helped the people of the Gulf Coast.

Then, in the few hours leading up to his Oval Office speech:

• He appointed former assistant US attorney and Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich to lead a reorganization of the troubled Minerals Management Service.
  
  
• He asked former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan.
  
  
• He said he would appoint separate commanders for Florida, Alabama and Louisiana to give residents a more direct point of contact with federal officials presiding over the recovery. (source)
  
  

All good steps, but steps he could and should have taken weeks ago.

So why the prime time Oval Office speech now? Certainly news of these new appointments, commissions and plans could have been conveyed to the American people via White House spokesmen, published statements or the less formal type of speeches this president makes seemingly every day.

The reason for the time and place of this speech was so that Mr. Obama could use the trappings of his office, the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history and the suffering of the people of the Gulf Coast to push his far-left, obscenely expensive idea of an energy policy. The lion's share of his 18 minute address was filled with the same type of campaign rhetoric that is his trademark - vague ideas, this time about breaking the nation's dependency on oil, but no solid plan for how that can be affordably and practically accomplished.

Call it 'Dashed Hope & Unwanted Change Part II: This Time It's Energy' and as with health care reform, President Obama and his Congressional cronies will attempt to take a system in need of some improvement and transform it into a bloated, too-far-reaching, legislative nightmare.

To do so, expect him to employ more hollow rhetoric, empty promises and a bait & switch approach that leads many Americans to think they might get a good deal. In reality the president is trying to sell an assortment of job killing and unsustainable big government programs that the country cannot afford and his Tuesday night speech was just his latest infomercial.