Obama's response to the oil spill has been an instruction manual in the incompetence of lifelong politicians to deal with practical problems. A press release being sent around by the Republican Party hits home: it shows how Obama has been our second-hander-in-chief, acting not in response to the objective needs of the crisis, but in response to the coverage of the spill in the media.

Meanwhile, we're learning that oil skimmers offered by the Dutch to help clean up the oil slick were held up for 50 days because of bureaucratic paperwork and EPA regulations—all of which was in the power of the president to waive. (For more on the administration's flat-footed inaction, see here.)

The administration's only response has been a ham-fisted moratorium on new drilling licenses in the Gulf, which is already causing oil rigs to shut down and leave for countries that want them (such as Brazil), with at least one oil exploration firm cancelling its contracts with Gulf firms.

But this is not just incompetence. It reflects the administration's moral priorities. In their view, this is about punished big business—and especially the oil industry—for its evil, while exploiting the crisis to expand the power of government. For that goal, Obama's response is perfectly tailored.

The whole Obama presidency has been an experiment in rule by executive decree. Take, for example, President Obama's demand that BP set up a $20 billion "escrow fund" for paying damages for the spill, which is to be administered by an "independent" official who just happens to be chosen by the president. BP has knuckled under to this demand, and also to Obama's demand that it suspend dividend payments to its shareholders. (So much for the British pensioners who rely on those payments.)

What is important about this fund is that there are existing legal processes for assessing the damages caused by the spill, litigating them, and settling claims. That process did not break down in this case, and I've seen no evidence that it is failing to work. But by setting up this fund, Obama has specifically bypassed that legal process and created an extralegal one, one based on nothing but his own unlimited authority to impose his will.

Even the New York Times is beginning to notice this trend (before making excuses for it).

First there was General Motors, whose chief executive was summarily dismissed by the White House shortly before the government became the company's majority shareholder. Chrysler was forced into a merger. At the banks that received government bailouts, executive pay was curbed; at insurance companies seeking to jack up premiums, scathing criticism led to rollbacks.

But President Obama's successful move to force BP to establish a $20 billion compensation fund that the company will have no voice in allocating—just a down payment, the president insisted—may have been the most vivid example of what he recently called his determination to step in and do "what individuals couldn't do and corporations wouldn't do."

With that display of raw arm-twisting, Mr. Obama reinvigorated a debate about the renewed reach of government power, or, alternatively, the power of government overreach.

The extent to which the president "twisted arms," by the way, is greatly exaggerated. BP has spent the past decade attempting to turn itself into a pampered lapdog of the government, greenwashing itself as an environmentally correct oil company whose initials stand for "Beyond Petroleum"—a claim that is beyond belief. So they naturally have acceded to whatever the government demands of them.

But this is not about BP. It's about us. It's about the preservation of the rule of law and of some legal and constitutional limits on the power of the president.

A commenter over at NRO sums up succinctly what is the matter with the BP shakedown:

Doesn't this perfectly sum up the Left's view of government? Its role is not to produce the oil (the moratorium) or clean up the oil (the Obama administration's well-documented failures post-explosion), but to distribute someone else's money to third parties.

I don't want to let BP off the hook here. They should pay legitimate claims. But it should be done through their claims process and, if necessary, the courts. Instead, this escrow deal is just another way to create a political constituency by redistributing someone else's wealth. Modern, interest-group liberalism at its core.

Far more hard-hitting is the Ben Stein column below, which captures the Third World, banana republic flavor of the Obama presidency.

Jack Wakeland sent me this link with the following comment:

"Ben Stein writes: '"Under what authority," I asked. "None needed," was the final answer.'

"To large corporations who are at a political disadvantage—like GM and BP—the president of the United States bluntly issues orders as if he were an absolute and hereditary dictator.

"Firing the chairman of the board of GM with one telephone call, taking tens of billions of dollars in cash from BP with another: one has to wonder if these will be, in Mr. Obama's memory, the cherished moments in his life. In his mind, will these be the high points that made all the years of hard work; all of the tactical double crosses; all of the social maneuvering; all of the earnestly delivered half-truths; all of the years in obscurity spent to establish the reputation upon which to mount his rapid climb to the top—are these the moments that will have made it all worthwhile?

"We Americans will probably never answer that question with any certainty. To answer that question one would have to ask it of someone who understands life in a different kind of country. We Americans will probably always reserve a charitable confusion about Mr. Obama's ultimate motives. To borrow a phrase from Dorothy Rabinowitz, he will always seem like 'the alien in the White House.' He's a man from a different country, a country with which we're unfamiliar, a land where the inhabitants aren't in the habit of assuming that liberty is their birthright."