Peter Fonda does not mince words when criticizing President Obama for his “handling of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill“:

The star of the 1969 road movie “Easy Rider” was in Cannes for the premiere of “The Big Fix” by Rebecca and Josh Tickell, the only feature documentary in the official selection at the Cannes film festival this year.

Fonda — a keen environmentalist and co-producer of the film which centres on the explosion of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon, the ensuing spill and its consequences — accused Washington of trying to gag reporting on the issue.

“I sent an email to President Obama saying, ‘You are a f(expletive) traitor,’ using those words… ‘You’re a traitor, you allowed foreign boots on our soil telling our military — in this case the coastguard — what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do’.”

Jane Fonda could not be reached for comment.

Perhaps, it was the serendipity of catching this headline, 3 officers plead not guilty in Katrina shootings, while pondering the media’s comparatively* kid-glove treatment of the Administration’s reaction to the Gulf Oil Spill that reminded me just how jaundiced was their coverage of Katrina.

Here we have a story of the misconduct of New Orleans police officers, individuals answerable to municipal, not federal, authorities, yet all too many media outlets covered the story as if the Bush White House and the Republican’s appointees were entirely responsible for the mayhem in The Big Easy in the immediate aftermath of Katrina:

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shootings, which happened in the midst of another of the scorching days after Katrina. Bodies floated in filthy flood waters. Shots could be heard throughout the city, and many believed they were aimed at the endless stream of helicopters, the police, the rescue crews.

This all relates to the overheated media coverage of Katrina, with many false stories making their way to the public through the media, such as at the “legend” of shot being fired at helicopters.  This is not to excuse the Administration for some of the bungled federal efforts at relief, but to point out that officials from other levels of government responded in a manner which compromised relief efforts and conributed to the chaos.

This story serves to remind us that municipal officials did not always respond in a professional manner, yet somehow, somewhere a narrative was created of George W. Bush’s almost exclusive incompetence.

* (more…)

First off, hat tip to The GOP Alliance for the headline.

Now to the business at hand…

Keep in mind, this is the Federal Government’s estimates and modeling.  So take this with a grain of salt since Obama & Company haven’t gotten one thing right since the explosion.

But there is now a 61-80% chance that the beaches of Key West up to Fort Lauderdale are going to be significantly impacted by the (still flowing) oil rupture.

I wish America had a leader right now.   So THIS is the competency level of our Federal Government — the same one we will have running our healthcare, right?  How much of the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama & Florida have to die before Obama stops golfing and “focuses like a laser beam”?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)