Obama Fiddled, Stonewalled And Lied While Gulf Coast Drowned In Oil

When we find out the actual record of just how bad Obama failed us in the Gulf of Mexico during the BP oil spill disaster, we should all be enraged.

First of all, we now find that:

“The Obama administration blocked efforts by government scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could become and committed other missteps that raised questions about its competence and candor during the crisis, according to a commission appointed by the president to investigate the disaster.”

And we now find that:

The Obama administration failed to act upon or fully inform the public of its own worst-case estimates of the amount of oil gushing from the blown-out BP well, slowing response efforts and keeping the American people in the dark for weeks about the size of the disaster, according to preliminary reports from the presidential commission investigating the accident.

You get the sense that Obama fiddled (I suppose the modern equivalent of ‘fiddling’ by incompetent tyrants today would be ‘golfing’) while the Gulf Coast drowned.

Disaster in the Gulf: 52 Days and Counting …
Published June 10, 2010

The Obama administration claims it has been on top of the Gulf oil spill disaster since “day one.” Here’s a look at what the president and administration have been doing every day since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, triggering the massive spill. The following daily updates are based on a review of White House schedules, news releases and news coverage and do not cover every activity in the Gulf or in Washington:

June 10

In the Gulf: BP awaited the arrival of a second vessel to help pump more oil from the ruptured well up to the surface — the containment cap was capturing 630,000 gallons a day, but the second vessel is expected to double that. Meanwhile, local business owners and workers who have filed damage claims were complaining that BP is slow to respond and not paying them enough for their losses.

At the White House: President Obama was scheduled to meet in the afternoon with the families of those killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. He was also receiving a briefing on the oil spill in the morning and meeting with business leaders and energy experts to discuss energy reform after his meeting with the families.

June 9

In the Gulf: BP said it is dialing back a prediction by its chief operating officer that the leaking oil would be reduced to a “relative trickle” by next week. COO Doug Suttles now says it will take more time to reach that point.

At the White House: Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is heading the U.S. oil spill response, said the containment operation is now catching up to 630,000 gallons (2.3 million liters) a day and that the amount could nearly double by next week as processing of the captured oil is expanded.

June 8

In the Gulf: While the wellhead has been capped, oil that was still leaking and oil that has already leaked was separating and spreading out along the Gulf shore. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen warned the day before that the slick is no longer a “large, monolithic spill.” Rather, it is an “aggregation of hundreds or thousands of patches of oil that are going a lot of different directions.” Local officials continued to express concerns about the impact the spill would have on the economy as tourism season begins.

At the White House: President Obama was receiving a briefing on the spill in the morning before leaving to conduct a “tele-town hall meeting” on health care issues concerning seniors. He and first lady Michelle Obama were holding a congressional picnic at the White House later in the day.

June 7

In the Gulf: Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen reported that the cap on the wellhead was capturing 460,000 gallons of oil a day — up from 250,000 on Friday. At that rate, the cap could be diverting as little as 37 percent or as much as 77 percent of the oil leaking from the Gulf floor. Patches of oil were spreading out all along the Gulf region. Florida’s Panama City Beach was expected to get hit by oil within 72 hours, while Pensacola Beach continued to have tar balls wash ashore.

At the White House: President Obama and top federal officials were briefed in Washington by Allen on the BP spill. The president said the Gulf region will “bounce back” from the crisis and be “stronger than ever.” Obama was scheduled to participate in a high school graduation ceremony in Kalamazoo, Mich., later in the evening.

June 6

In the Gulf: BP CEO Tony Hayward said the container collected 10,500 barrels in 24 hours. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said the spill is killing tourism though the beaches in his state are not suffering badly from the oil. National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen told morning news shows that progress is being made but the relief well is the ultimate solution.

At the White House: More Coast Guard are being sent to the region for direct oversight of the contractors. Allen said he reports to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and President Obama but he is the on-scene coordinator and he makes the calls in the gulf.

June 5

In the Gulf: BP worked on its latest attempt to tame the runaway well by capping it and trying to siphon off some of the crude. The damaged rig has disgorged at least 22 million gallons of crude in the Gulf.

At the White House: In his weekly radio and Internet address recorded from the Gulf, President Obama promised to fight the oil spill and maintained his increasingly forceful tone toward BP.

June 4

In the Gulf: BP engineers adjusted a sophisticated cap over the Gulf oil gusher, trying to collect the crude now fouling four states. Engineers hoped to close several open vents on the cap throughout the day in the latest attempt to contain the oil.

At the White House: President Obama was in Louisiana, his second trip in a week and the third since the disaster unfolded.

June 3

In the Gulf: BP CEO Tony Hayward hailed the company’s work after underwater robots successfully sheared off a busted oil pipe spewing millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf, telling reporters that the company would have a “fully sealed” containment system in place by the end of June.

At the White House: The White House announced President Obama will return to the Louisiana Gulf Coast Friday, his third trop to the region since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20.

June 2

In the Gulf: BP’s effort to contain the oil gusher hit a snag when a saw became stuck in a thick pipe on a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the goal was to free the saw and finish the cut later in the day.

At the White House: The Justice Department has announced it started criminal and civil probes into the spill, although the department did not name specific targets for prosecution.

June 1

In the Gulf: BP is moving to start its first major pipe cut as soon as Wednesday, after which they will attempt to place a cap-like containment device over the leaking riser that would siphon the mixture to the surface.

At the White House: President Obama gave the leaders of an independent commission investigating the Gulf oil spill marching orders to thoroughly examine the disaster and its causes to ensure that the nation never faces such a catastrophe again. He said if any laws were broken, people will be prosecuted.

May 31

In the Gulf: Transocean, which owned the rig that it leased to BP, said it would like its liability limited. The beach at Grand Isle, La., which was hit with oil from the spill, and other areas along the coast were opened but swimming and fishing was prohibited.

At the White House: The White House confirmed that its national incident commander Thad Allen will begin on Tuesday to hold daily press briefings from the scene of the spill. The Justice Department announced Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. attorneys will meet with state attorneys general and hold a press conference on Tuesday.

May 30

In the Gulf: BP says it will try another containment effort beginning on Monday or Tuesday.

At the White House: Obama remained in Chicago for the Memorial Day weekend vacation. The White House released a summary of a discussion between Obama and chief liaison Thad Allen, which said the government is tripling its environmental cleanup team in areas affected by the spill. Environmental adviser Carol Browner appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” She said 150 government scientists are on the case.

May 29

In the Gulf: BP offered few details on its latest bid to plug the well as progress was difficult to measure from BP’s “spillcam” of mud, gas and oil billowing from the seafloor.

At the White House: Obama returns to Chicago for his Memorial Day weekend vacation.

May 28

In the Gulf: BP continues to try the “top kill” method, but also tries shooting rubber and other man-made “junk” into the well.

At the White House: Obama tours the Louisiana coastline. He says the federal government is treating the spill as its highest priority — he says the government has deployed 1,400 National Guard troops, 1,400 vessels and 3 million feet of boom

May 27

In the Gulf: BP continues to shoot heavy mud into the well, a process that appears to be making progress.

At the White House: Several developments related to the spill emerge in Washington. Minerals Management Service director Elizabeth Birnbaum resigns. The Obama administration announces new restrictions on offshore oil drilling, canceling and delaying certain projects. Obama holds a major press conference in which he declares the federal government is “in charge” and pledges to stop the leak. Obama leaves for a family vacation in Chicago at night.

May 26

In the Gulf: BP attempts to use the “top kill” method to shoot mud into the well. Meanwhile, BP says 25,000 claims for economic losses have been submitted, and that it has already paid close to $30 million.

At the White House: Obama visits a solar facility in Fremont, Calif.

May 25

In the Gulf: BP agrees to show a live feed of the “top kill” procedure under pressure from the Obama administration.

At the White House: Obama meets Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, then travels to San Francisco for fundraisers for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

May 24

In the Gulf: BP continues to prepare for the “top kill” procedure, as oil moves deeper into the Louisiana marshes.

At the White House: Obama meets with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano lead a Senate delegation to the Gulf region.

May 23

In the Gulf: BP says it will take at least another two days before crews can start to implement the “top kill” plan to plug the leaking well. BP continues to siphon out some oil from the leak.

At the White House: Obama orders top administration officials back to the Gulf to monitor the response.

May 22

In the Gulf: BP says it intends to continue using chemical dispersants after the EPA raises concerns about their long-term effects. Oil continues to wash ashore.

At the White House: Obama announces a presidential commission to investigate the disaster. He says in his weekly radio address that the panel, which is given six months to complete its work, is intended to figure out the “root causes” of the explosion and figure out how to make offshore drilling safer. The president speaks at the West Point commencement ceremonies in the morning.

May 21

In the Gulf: BP continues to prepare for the “top kill” procedure, while officials find animals covered in oil.

At the White House: No public events.

May 20

In the Gulf: BP continues to siphon out oil from the busted well. The company begins preparing for a new plan to stop the oil leak called a “top kill.” The plan involves injecting mud into the top of the well and then sealing the area with cement.

At the White House: No public events.

May 19

In the Gulf: U.S. officials reportedly hold talks with Cuban officials on response efforts amid concerns that the oil slick is spreading even farther.

At the White House: Obama welcomes Mexican President Felipe Calderon to Washington. Both heads of state publicly criticize Arizona’s new immigration law. The president hosts a state dinner for Calderon at night.

May 18

In the Gulf: A U.S. official says it is “increasingly likely” the oil will be swept out to the Florida coastline.

At the White House: Obama visits a factory in Youngstown, Ohio.

May 17

In the Gulf: BP claims the tube is sucking out more than 42,000 gallons a day from the Gulf floor to a tanker ship. That’s still a fraction of the oil leaking out from the well.

At the White House: Obama hosts the NCAA tournament champion University of Connecticut women’s basketball team.

May 16

In the Gulf: BP crews successfully hook the tube to the oil pipe to siphon oil to a tanker ship. Researchers say the oil has entered a current that could carry it toward the Keys.

At the White House: No publicn events.

May 15

In the Gulf: BP struggles to install the tube into the oil pipe, but expresses optimism in the plan. The company continues to drill a relief well, which is considered the permanent, though time-consuming, solution to the problem. The process is about halfway done.

At the White House: Obama speaks at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service. He delivers his weekly radio address on “Wall Street Reform.”

May 14

In the Gulf: BP uses robots to try to insert a small tube into the leaking pipe on the Gulf floor, in an attempt to seal it off and siphon oil to the surface.

At the White House: Obama honors TOP COPS award recipients at the White House.

May 13

In the Gulf: BP prepares to suck oil away from the spewing well before trying to place the smaller containment box on top.

At the White House: Obama flies to Buffalo, N.Y., for a tour and town hall meetings at a local factory. He later travels to New York City for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event.

May 12

In the Gulf: Crews lower the new, smaller containment box to the Gulf of Mexico floor.

At the White House: Obama meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House, then takes questions from the press.

May 11

In the Gulf: Response crews replenish fuel and water in preparation for long-term relief efforts.

At the White House: Reports surface that the Obama administration has proposed splitting up the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for overseeing offshore drilling. One arm would be tasked with inspecting rigs and enforcing regulations while the other would oversee drilling leases.

May 10

In the Gulf: BP announces it will try to place a smaller dome over the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

At the White House: Obama meets with Cabinet officials and senior staff at the White House to discuss the oil spill response.

May 9

In the Gulf: BP officials say, after the 100-ton box fails to stop the leak, that they may try to do the same thing with a smaller box. Approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil have spilled into the Gulf at this point.

At the White House: Obama speaks to graduates at Hampton University in Virginia.

May 8

In the Gulf: Balls of tar begin washing up on Alabama’s beaches. Meanwhile, the 100-ton box meant to capture the leak is not working.

At the White House: Obama delivers his weekly radio address on holding insurance companies more accountable.

May 7

In the Gulf: Robots place a 100-ton box over the oil well on the ocean floor, in an unprecedented attempt to stop the flow. Officials expand the coastal area closed to fishing due to the spill.

At the White House: No public events.

May 6

In the Gulf: Officials confirm that oil has made landfall on the Louisiana coastline. BP prepares to lower a giant box over the oil well to capture the leak.

At the White House: Obama participates in a national security meeting on Afghanistan and Afghanistan.

May 5

In the Gulf: BP caps one of the three oil leaks, though thousands of barrels of oil continue to leak into the Gulf.

At the White House: Obama attends a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House.

May 4

In the Gulf: Winds in the Gulf of Mexico calm down, giving crews a chance to lay down boom by the shorelines. BP tries to cap a small leak while preparing to place a containment dome over the main leak.

At the White House: Obama speaks at the Business Council in Washington. There he pledges to minimize economic damage from the oil spill.

May 3

In the Gulf: BP’s executive says crews are reducing the amount of oil reaching the surface by using dispersants. He pledges that BP will pay “all necessary and appropriate” costs associated with the clean-up.

At the White House: The administration, holding a meeting with BP executives, presses BP to explain how it will cover those clean-up costs. The president has a conference call with Allen and local officials to discuss the response.

May 2

In the Gulf: More vessels and response teams are deployed. Fishing is shut down from the Mississippi River to the Florida panhandle.

At the White House: Obama travels to the Gulf coast to survey the damage and meet with local officials. He calls the spill a “potentially unprecedented” disaster and pledges a “relentless” federal response. Obama is later briefed on the attempted Times Square bombing.

May 1

In the Gulf: Two more offshore platforms are shut down in the Gulf of Mexico as a precaution. Crews continue using dispersants by the leak. The slick from the explosion has tripled in size. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen is put in charge.

At the White House: Obama speaks at the University of Michigan commencement. Obama later attends the White House Correspondents Dinner.

April 30

In the Gulf: Oil reportedly begins to wash ashore in Louisiana’s wetlands. High winds make coastal protection efforts difficult.

At the White House: Obama again addresses the spill in public remarks. He suspends new offshore oil drilling but reaffirms his commitment to domestic oil production. The president order an immediate review on rig safety and sends top administration officials to the Gulf coast.

April 29

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard says the oil spill could soon reach landfall, while mitigation efforts continue.

At the White House: Obama, in his first public remarks on the spill, pledges to deploy “every single available resource” in response. He speaks with the governors from five Gulf states, while Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declares a “spill of national significance.”

April 28

In the Gulf: Crews start to set fire to select sections of the spill. The Coast Guard reports that it has found a new leak, and updates its estimate of the spill from 1,000 to 5,000 barrels a day.

At the White House: Obama talks about the economy in Missouri. He later travels to Illinois to talk about financial reform. He is briefed on Air Force One about the spill on the way back to Washington.

April 27

In the Gulf: More boats are deployed to the Gulf. Coast Guard officials say they’re considering lighting the spill on fire.

At the White House: The Obama administration launches an investigation into the explosion. Administration officials meet with BP executives. Obama meets with the newly formed debt and deficit commission, then travels to Iowa to speak at an energy facility.

April 26

In the Gulf: About 15,000 gallons of dispersants and 21,000 feet of boom are used at the spill site to mitigate the damage from the leak.

At the White House: Obama greets the New York Yankees at the White House, then speaks at an entrepreneurship summit.

April 25

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard estimates up to 1,000 barrels are leaking in the Gulf every day in the wake of the blast. Dozens of boats and hundreds of response workers are deployed to contain the spill.

At the White House: Obama leaves Asheville to attend a memorial service for the West Virginia miners who died in the Upper Big Branch explosion.

April 24

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard discovers oil leaking from the ocean floor.

At the White House: Obama plays golf in North Carolina.

April 23

In the Gulf: The Coast Guard ends the search for the missing 11 workers, who are presumed dead, at the end of the day. The Coast Guard reports that oil does not appear to be leaking from the well head, though they are trying to contain what spilled in the explosion.

At the White House: Obama and the first family travel to Asheville, N.C., for vacation.

April 22

In the Gulf: The Deepwater Horizon rig sinks, while search-and-rescue efforts continue.

At the White House: Representatives from 16 federal agencies collaborate as part of a national response team to the Gulf disaster. Obama travels to New York City to discuss his financial regulatory bill. The president later holds a meeting in the Oval Office about the response to the oil rig tragedy. The White House releases a statement saying Obama is ensuring the government is offering “all assistance needed” in the rescue effort and in responding to the environmental impact.

April 21

In the Gulf: Coast Guard helicopters search for 11 missing oil rig workers.

At the White House: Obama meets with Senate Judiciary Committee members at the White House to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy. He later hosts a reception for G20 labor officials.

April 20

In the Gulf: An offshore oil drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP explodes in the Gulf of Mexico nearly 50 miles of the Louisiana coast.

At the White House: The president returns to Washington from Los Angeles, where he was attending a set of Democratic fundraisers the night before.

And if that isn’t bad enough, the president added injury to incompetence.  Thanks to Obama’s incredible incompetence and failure as a president, more than 800,000 Americans are going to lose their jobs, according to a government report by the Environment and Public Works Committee.

… The noble Indian rode his horse up to the putrid brown muck that had once been known as the Gulf of Mexcico.  And he saw what President Barack Obama had allowed to happen to the majestic waters.  And he wept at the incompetence of the most evil American president since Democrat Andrew Jackson – who had ordered the genocidal march known as the Trail of Tears.

Yet Another Liberal Points Out That Obama Is An Abject Failure

You have to appreciate the irony at the start of this article.  Democrats have mocked Sarah Palin’s “Drill, baby, drill.”  But is their increasingly loud wail to Obama – “Do something, baby, do something” – somehow supposed to be better?

Where was plan A?
By KIRSTEN POWERS
Last Updated: 9:58 AM, May 27, 2010

Do something, baby, do something: That’s the cry from Obama supporters and opponents alike as the oil keeps gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

The political firestorm kept growing yesterday, with supporter James Carville ranting that the administration has been “lackadaisical” and “naive” in its response to the disaster. He urged it to rapidly “move to Plan B.”

But that suggests there was ever a Plan A.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is so frustrated with the lack of response to his plan to stop the slick with sand barriers that yesterday he called on the White House and BP to either “stop the oil spill or get out of the way.”

“Plug the damn hole,” President Obama reportedly barked at staffers in frustration after the explosion. That’s right up there with “Heckuva job, Brownie” in terms of clueless statements uttered by presidents in the midst of nationally televised disasters.

Meanwhile, White House regret over Obama’s politically expedient embrace of the “Drill, baby, drill” trope is growing faster than the vast oil slick.

Back on March 31, Obama announced — to the horror of many of his supporters — that he was expanding offshore drilling along the coastlines of the south and mid-Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico. Worse, he painted a (too) rosy scenario of offshore drilling being eminently safe.

True, it is rare that a full-blown environmental catastrophe results from an offshore oil well. But it can happen — and a Democratic president who’s embracing drilling ought to know the risks, and be prepared for the worst. But rather than planning for a spill, Obama parroted McCain-Palin talking points about how safe offshore drilling is.

Turns out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration back in 1994 drafted plans for responding to a major Gulf oil spill, a response called “In-Situ Burn.”

Ron Gourget, a former federal oil-spill-response coordinator and one author of the draft, told the Times of London: “The whole reason the plan was created was so that we could pull the trigger right away.” The idea was to use barriers called “fire booms” to collect and contain the spill at sea — then burn it off. He believes this could have captured 95 percent of the oil from this spill.

But at the time of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the federal government didn’t have a single fire boom on hand. Nor is there any evidence that the government required BP to have any clear plan to deal with a massive spill. How is this OK?

The administration’s chief response so far was to send out Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to do his best impersonation of a totalitarian thug, proclaiming that the government would “have its boot on the throat of BP.”

(Fun fact: While in the Senate, Salazar backed an increase in oil and gas leases in the Gulf Coast region by promoting and voting for the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006.)

Since the “blame BP” strategy isn’t working, Obama will today announce tougher safety requirements and more rigorous inspections for offshore drilling operations. Sounds nice — except the problem isn’t a lack of safety requirements, it’s that the experts at the US Minerals Management Service ignored the existing requirements.

In fact, it was under Salazar’s reign that the MMS approved BP’s drilling without getting the permits required by law for drilling that might harm endangered species. The agency routinely overruled warnings regarding the safety and environmental impact of drilling proposals in the Gulf.

None of this was a secret.

It also shouldn’t be a secret that no matter how many inspections and safety requirements you have, you can’t ever completely prevent disasters like this one. If you’re going to permit offshore drilling, be prepared to respond to a spill.

If he promised us anything, Obama promised us competence. Instead, we’ve gotten the Keystone Cops.

Ah, competence.  One day after Obama is gone, we might actually have some of that in the White House.

Obama is bringing his incompetence everywhere he goes, rather like the travelling salesman with the unfortunate body odor that exudes out of every pour brings stink with him everywhere he goes.

What was it about being a community organizer that prepared him to actually lead anything constructive?

It’s not right to say that Obama has been doing everything the federal government could do; no, he ignored the very first thing that the federal government already had as policy to do in the event of a disaster like this – and has done absolutely nothing else in its place.  Oil that could have been contained and burned off is instead murdering all of the pelicans on the coast.  And, instead of helping Louisiana do everything it could to keep that oil off its coasts and marshes, Obama’s federal government has massively screwed up on that side of the coin, too.  Governor Jindal demanded 24 temporary sand berms to act as a barrier between the coast and the oil; first the federal government said it had to dot every i and cross every t with endless environmental studies before it would authorize any such construction; then the government said it would only permit six berms, and would only actually pay for just one berm.  And now the oil is all over the place and its too damn late for much of anything but to scrub oil from the few pelicans that might survive.

Instead, what Zero did was ZERO.  Instead of actually working to resolve he problem, Obama has handled this like a campaign issue.  He handed all the responsibility over to British Petroleum while simultaneously saying he was responsible.  It has all been about words rather than action.

Bobby Jindal has called upon Obama to “either “stop the oil spill or get out of the way.” And of course Obama won’t do either.  His government is worse than useless, because it is getting in the way of actual efforts by Louisiana to DO SOMETHING.

So here’s what we’re facing now under the failed regime of our Turd-in-Chief:

“In Revelations, it says the water will turn to blood. That’s what it looks like out here — like the Gulf is bleeding,” said P.J. Hahn, director of coastal zone management for Plaquemines Parish as he kneeled down to take a picture of an oil-coated feather. “This is going to choke the life out of everything.” […]

Eugene, 54, who has worked for decades in a shipyard, said he was growing tired of the government’s response.

“He ain’t much of a leader,” he said of Obama. “The beach you can clean up. The marsh you can’t. Where’s the leadership. I want to hear what’s being done. We’re going to lose everything.” […]

Newly disclosed internal Coast Guard documents from the day after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig indicated that U.S. officials were warning of a leak of 336,000 gallons per day of crude from the well in the event of a complete blowout.

The volume turned out to be much closer to that figure than the 42,000 gallons per day that BP first estimated. Weeks later it was revised to 210,000 gallons. Now, an estimated 500,000 to 1 million gallons of crude is believed to be leaking daily.

“He ain’t much of a leader.”  You got that right.  I was screaming that from the rooftops two years and change ago.

Do we have good information?  No, everything keeps turning out to be wrong – and always much for the worse.  Is anything getting done?  No.  Just one failed plan after another.  Having never bothered to implement the plan we’ve had since 1994 for a disaster like this.

Now we’re being told that the latest “fix” is capturing about 42,000 gallons of oil a day.  Which might sound impressive until you realize that it’s leaking a MILLION gallons a day.

And we’re looking at the very real possibility that we’re going to continue to see a massive disaster get more massive every single day until Christmas.

The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is rather like the Obama administration itself: there’s just no end to this disaster, and all we have instead of solutions is a constant stream of misinformation and excuses.

Most Red Ink Ever: Congratulations On Your ‘Historic’ Presidency, Obama

Virginia Slims used to run an ad campaign called, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” The ads for the women’s-marketed cigarette brand ran on the theme that it was hip and modern for women to smoke. But the hidden subtext of the campaign was, “Look how far you’ve come: now you can die a nasty preternatural death of cancer just like the men.”

In a lot of ways, Barack Obama is the new “You’ve come a long way, baby” poster boy.  He was marketed as the historic first black president in American history – but now that we’ve come this far, we’re going to see our nation perish to a cancer of “Marxist-red” ink.

A couple of truly terrifying articles who just what an unmitigated – and historic – disaster Barack Obama’s presidency has been in just six short months:

Obama’s 09 deficit exceeds all eight years of Bush red ink
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
08/25/09 3:08 PM EDT

How much is President Obama boosting federal spending? The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl puts a little perspective on the numbers made public today:

· This year, Washington will spend $30,958 per household, tax $17,576 per household, and borrow $13,392 per household. This spending is not just temporary: President Obama would permanently keep annual spending between $5,000 and $8,000 per household higher than it had been under President Bush.
· The 22 percent spending increase projected for 2009 represents the largest government expansion since the 1952 height of the Korean War (adjusted for inflation). Federal spending is up 57 percent since 2001.

· The 2009 budget deficit will be larger than all budget deficits from 2002 through 2007 combined. More than 43 cents of every dollar Washington spends in 2009 will have been borrowed.

· One would expect the post-recession deficit to revert back to the $150 billion to $350 billion budget deficits that were typical before the recession. Instead, by 2019, the President forecasts a $917 billion budget deficit, a public debt of 77 percent of GDP, and annual net interest spending of $774 billion.

· The White House projects $10.6 trillion in new deficits between 2009 and 2019—nearly $80,000 per household in new borrowing.

· None of these estimates include the cost of health reform.

· The White House underestimates future budget deficits by trillions of dollars by (1) assuming that discretionary spending will be frozen to inflation for the next decade, (2) assuming that cap-and-trade revenues will be available to finance a Make Work Pay credit (the House-passed bill allocates those revenues elsewhere), (3) assuming health care reform will be deficit-neutral, and (4) assuming certain tax increases that are unlikely to be enacted.

Exceeding eight years of Bush deficits in just six months?  You’ve come a long, way, baby.

Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion — more than the sum of all previous deficits since America’s founding. And it says by the next decade’s end the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

But before President Barack Obama can do much about it, he’ll have to weather recession aftershocks including unemployment that his advisers said Tuesday is still heading for 10 percent.

Overall, White House and congressional budget analysts said in a brace of new estimates that the economy will shrink by 2.5 to 2.8 percent this year even as it begins to climb out of the recession. Those estimates reflect this year’s deeper-than-expected economic plunge.

The grim deficit news presents Obama with both immediate and longer-term challenges. The still fragile economy cannot afford deficit-fighting cures such as spending cuts or tax increases. But nervous holders of U.S. debt, particularly foreign bondholders, could demand interest rate increases that would quickly be felt in the pocketbooks of American consumers.

Amid the gloomy numbers on Tuesday, Obama signaled his satisfaction with improvements in the economy by announcing he would nominate Republican Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The announcement, welcomed on Wall Street, diverted attention from the budget news and helped neutralize any disturbance in the financial markets from the high deficit projections.

The White House Office of Management and Budget indicated that the president will have to struggle to meet his vow of cutting the deficit in half in 2013 — a promise that earlier budget projections suggested he could accomplish with ease.

“This recession was simply worse than the information that we and other forecasters had back in last fall and early this winter,” said Obama economic adviser Christina Romer.

Let’s go back to a couple of Wall Street Journal articles to see the patent falsehood to the claim that Obama didn’t know how bad things really were:

1) “Obama Budget Relies on Rosy Economic Forecasts” – February 26, 2009.  Liberals have tried to assure everyone, “Nobody could have known…”  But to quote Obama’s campaign rhetoric, “Yes, we can.”  At least if you write for the Wall Street Journal or a similar publication that doesn’t get it’s talking points from the Obama White House.  People with half a brain (which understandably excludes the overwhelming majority of liberals) knew that Obama was pumping manure and offering one false promise based on one false assumption after another.

The truth is that there were plenty of dire forecasts and claims that Obama’s numbers didn’t jive with reality; the fact that the White House didn’t listen isn’t anyone’s fault but Obama’s.

2) “Obama’s Rhetoric Is The Real Catastrophe” – February 13, 2009.  Barack Obama repeatedly fearmongered the economy by comparing it to the Great Depression in order to force his ill-fated $3.27 trillion stimulus fiasco through Congress.  The porkulus package was rushed through the legislative branches so quickly that no one actually even had a chance to read the darn thing – and then Obama took four days to sign the damn thing so he could have fun in Chicago.

Obama promised that if his stimulus was passed he would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and keep unemployment under 8% – and the reality has been an even bigger dud than the most conservative Republican predicted it would be.

Obama and his apologists are trying to argue that they didn’t know that the economy was so bad, but that is the most transparent and pathetic excuse given the fact that they repeatedly compared the state of the economy to the Great Depression.  Here’s the question, when they did that, were they simply demonizing, demagoguing, and fearmongering – thinking all the while that they were actually lying – or were they telling the truth as they understood it (i.e. that things were catastrophically bad)?  If the latter, their excuse that they didn’t know things were actually so bad simply vaporizes – because how could our present economy be worse than the Great Depression which they were comparing it too?  If the former, then Obama is literally a demon who cynically hurt tens of millions of Americans by driving down the economy merely to sell his self-serving political agenda.

That Obama and his Democrat allies are liars is already a given, it’s simply a question of when they lied.  And we can only hope that he is incompetent in his governance, rather than despicable in his deceitful and cynical manipulation.

As for unemployment “heading for 10%,” I personally agree with respected analyst Meredith Whitney: I see unemployment going to 13% or HIGHER.  By 2011, nearly half of the mortgages in our nation will be “underwater,” with owners owning more on the homes than the homes will be worth.  Obama has done virtually nothing to address the fundamental problem underlying why our economy crashed in the first place; and we’re going to pay dearly for that failure.

Let me tell you, as someone who pointed out that Barack Obama was woefully and terribly inexperienced and not up to the job over a year ago, the community-organizer-in-chief is simply not up to the job.  And neither are the radical leftwing punks that he has primarily surrounded himself with.

The liberals began to shrilly claim that Bush was incompetent during his second term over the issue of his handling of Iraq; but it needs to be pointed out that Bush ultimately DID succeed in Iraq – and by pursuing the “surge strategy” that Democrats and Obama himself demonized.  Bush won the war in Iraq even while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was wailing, “I believe that this war is lost.”

But now, only months into his presidency, even the LEFT is starting to distrust Obama’s competence.  This isn’t a partisan issue anymore – liberals are beginning to doubt Obama’s competence to accomplish his liberal agenda.  Democrats themselves are pointing out all the things Obama’s done wrong, and failed to do right.  And – while I cheer Obama’s inability to succeed in his socialism – that’s still bad, because we have no real leader, and we’re going to increasingly start drifting as a nation.

Yeah, you’ve come a long way, Barry Hussein.  You’ve come all the way from the “historic presidency of the first African-American in the White House,” to the most historic failure that the White House has ever seen.  And your policies are proving to be such a historic failure after only six months that this nation may literally not survive the remaining 3 1/2 years of your term until we can vote you out of office and be finally rid of you.

It is a terrible and tragic shame that the mainline media propagandists fixated so much on the color of Barack Obama’s skin that they failed to look at the color of his failed ideology or his complete lack of necessary experience to lead this country.