Did Obama pull a fast one in claiming that he went swimming in the Gulf of Mexico

It is a little surprising that the press didn't complain about having to rely on the White House photographer for this photo. If Bush had pulled this off and not gone swimming in the Gulf, what would the reaction have been?

President Barack Obama wanted to convince America that the Gulf of Mexico remains open for business. But perhaps he didn't want the world to catch another glimpse of his hairless chest.

So when he and his daughter, Sasha, took a dip in the sea off Florida this weekend, only the White House photographer was allowed to capture proceedings.

The official picture was intended to provide evidence that the region's beaches are back to normal. Yet it soon emerged that the private beach on which it was taken, off Alligator Point in St Andrew Bay, north-west Florida, isn't technically in the gulf. . . .

"Oil Spill Coverage Trending Down"

Wasn't this "the biggest environmental disaster the country has ever faced"? Do you think that the lack of coverage is due to Obama's restrictions on news coverage? The Associated Press has this:

Journalists covering the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been yelled at, kicked off public beaches and islands and threatened with arrest in the nearly three weeks since the government promised improved media access.

Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s point person for the response, issued a May 31 directive to BP PLC and federal officials ensuring media access to key sites along the coast. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles followed up with a letter to news organizations, saying the company “fully supports and defends all individuals’ rights to share their personal thoughts and experiences with journalists if they so choose.”

Those efforts have done little to curtail the obstacles, harassment and intimidation tactics journalists are facing by federal officials and local police, as well as BP employees and contractors, while covering the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history.

“We think a lot of the restrictions are way tighter than they need to be,” said Michael Oreskes, an AP senior managing editor. “So far, I think the government has done a better job of controlling the flow of information than of controlling the flow of oil in the Gulf.” . . .

Broadcasting & Cable has this:

The BP Gulf oil spill was the top story among a mix of media for the week ending July 4, but there are signs the story may be "losing some steam."

That is according to the latest Project for Excellence In Journalism's (PEJ) weekly news coverage index.

The story captured 15% of the news hole, but that is down from the week before, when it had 23% for the number two spot behind the General McChrystal story. And just the week before, the story commanded 44% of the news hole. It was the lowest percentage of coverage since April 19-25, when the oil rig first exploded and the underwater gusher began.

"The once-hot political narrative--the performance of the Obama White House in the crisis--has diminished," said PEJ in its analysis. And while other developments could produce a spike in coverage, the relief well that may provide a breakthrough in containment is not expected to be ready until August."

The second biggest story (13% of the news hole) was about fears of a fizzling economic recovery. Third, with 11%, was coverage of the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Elena Kagan, though that was only half the attention given to the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings last year at this time.

Number four at 8% was the story of 10 people in the U.S. accused of being part of a Russian spy ring, while Afghanistan was at number 5 with 5%, down from the 25% and top spot it claimed the week before thanks to the ousting of McChrystal atop the war effort there.

Obama administration won't let world's largest oil skimmer help in Gulf

This is unbelievable. The largest skimmer in the world can't be used because the EPA won't give approval. And the reason the EPA won't give approval is because some of the water put back into the gulf still has some oil in it.

With no assurances it will be allowed to join the Gulf oil cleanup, a Taiwanese-owned ship billed as the world's largest skimming vessel was preparing to sail Friday evening to the scene of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.The ship - the length of 3 1/2 football fields and 10 stories high - is designed to collect up to 500,000 barrels of oily water a day through 12 vents on either side of its bow. It docked in Norfolk en route to the Gulf from Portugal, where it was retrofitted to skim the seas. The ship and its crew of 32 were to leave Virginia waters Friday evening.
The owners of the "A Whale" said the ship features a new skimming approach that has never been attempted on such a large scale. They are anxious to put it to its first test in the Gulf.
"We really have to start showing people what we can do," said Bob Grantham, project coordinator for TMT Group, a Taiwan-based shipping company.
The company is still negotiating with the Coast Guard to join the cleanup and does not have a contract with BP to perform cleanup work. The company also needs environmental approval and waiver of a nearly century-old law aimed at protecting U.S. shipping interests.
Environmental Protection Agency approval is required because some of the seawater returned to the Gulf would have traces of oil. . . .

Did Oil Companies Rely on Faulty U.S. Data about what would happen in an oil leak?

Federal Government stops sand berm dredging to protect Louisiana from oil

Louisiana Official Furious at Obama

Is Thad Allen up to speed on the oil spill?

From NPR:

The head of the federal oil-spill response announced in a press conference Tuesday that a ship called the Development Driller II has now bored down 9,000 feet below the seafloor in its efforts to create a relief well. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the drilling ship should be able to tap into the ruptured well in three to four weeks -- that would be mid-July -- a month ahead of schedule.
Unfortunately, none of these statements appears to be true.
National Incident Commander Thad Allen has trouble keeping his facts straight. He comes across great on TV. He's poised, polished, authoritative in his Coast Guard uniform. But ever since the federal government told BP it was no longer welcome at the official news conferences, the admiral has had to stand on his own answering technical questions about BP's operations. This carries the symbolism that the government is in charge. But as a result, facts often end up garbled.
Thursday's briefing was a painful example. It ended up being an exercise in correcting the errors in Allen's opening statement.

Coast Guard stops skimmers from sucking up gulf oil

The Obama administration wouldn't issue a waiver on the Jones Act so that foreign built ships could clean up the spill. Now they have used the Coast Guard to harass and stop the ships that Gov. Bobby Jindal was using.

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor's wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.

"It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. "Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges."

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

"These barges work. You've seen them work. You've seen them suck oil out of the water," said Jindal. . . .

And this is the obviously bizarre reason.

But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges. . . .

Obama claims that Oil Spill shows that small government doesn't work

Say what? But as unbelievable as it seems that is Obama's message. Oil companies are told where, when, and how to drill. Their drilling operations are inspected monthly.

The government hasn't responded for weeks to requests that the Jindal can place barrier islands to stop the oil.

Bureaucracy: Alabama Governor Bob Riley (R) criticized the committee of federal agencies that is currently in place to coordinate response to the oil spill. "It's a committee where any one member has absolute veto power," Riley said. "I don't think you can do that."

Politics drives decisions:

The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about "America's addiction to oil." One member has blogged about it regularly.
Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard's engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it's in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists.
The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management.
The White House said the commission will focus on the government's "too cozy" relationship with the oil industry. A presidential spokesman said panel members will "consult the best minds and subject matter experts" as they do their work.
The commission has yet to meet, yet some panel members had made their views known.
Environmental activist Frances Beinecke on May 27 blogged: "We can blame BP for the disaster and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster and we should. But in the end, we also must place the blame where it originated: America's addiction to oil." And on June 3, May 27, May 22, May 18, May 4, she called for bans on drilling offshore and the Arctic. . . .

There is also the problem with Obama hasn't put the Jones Act aside so that foreign skimmers can be used to clean up the mess. This act was done to protect labor unions.

Why weren't the inspections the Minerals Management Service performed on the Deepwater Horizonable to detect the problems before they occurred?

Even Obama's supporters admit that he responded slowly. Finally, Public Policy Polling (a Democrat polling organization) has a new poll showing that more Louisiana's think that Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama did with the oil spill.

Obama blames others for oil spill

With Democrats massively controlling both the House and the Senate, Obama somehow gets in a dig at Republicans and blames them for the problems in the gulf. Never mind that "six months" ago that Obama never went to Congress over these issues and never mind that Republicans have virtually no power on the Hill, he was still going after them.

President Barack Obama said Friday that some members of Congress should share the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

In an exclusive one-on-one interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

The president also implied that anti-big government types such as Tea Party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.

“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.” . . .