WAIT!  I'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE – AT 11:25 P.M. ET:  What was it's name?  "Katrina"?  Yeah, that was it.  Or maybe it was, "The President Fights a Storm."  It starred George W. Bush as the guy and Brownie as his best friend.

Now Obama wants to make the sequel:  "Saint Barack and the Oil Slick."  The Politico has the first exclusive, from Hollywood:

President Obama will head to the Gulf Coast Sunday morning for a trip an administration official describes as having "a very small footprint."

The trip, announced Saturday morning, comes after Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday “[c]ertainly not this weekend,” when asked if the president would visit the area in the wake of the oil spill there.

So, we begin with a lie.  Apparently, the White House finally realized that the oil slick could become its Katrina, and Obama doesn't have a Brownie to blame. 

The press already is in high protection mode, making sure Obama comes out of this in good shape.  From The New York Times:

As President Obama, who will visit the Gulf region on Sunday morning, has stepped up his administration’s response to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, ordering a moratorium on new offshore drilling leases and dispatching cabinet secretaries and cargo planes to the region, the White House is also trying to avert the kind of political damage inflicted on former President George W. Bush by his administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

Right.  Let's continue the myth.  After all, when The Times can sell the public the line that the United States "lost" the Vietnam War, it can sell an oil slick.  The Bush response to Katrina was not slow.  It was fast.  The Coast Guard rescue operation was one of the best rescue operations in history.  An expected death toll of 10,000 was reduced to 1,100.  The same FEMA, led by the same ridiculed "Brownie," had handled five hurricanes in Florida a year earlier, and handled them well.

Katrina was a press assault on a president.  It was a conscious distortion of facts to protect an African-American mayor of New Orleans – a monumental incompetent – and a female governor of Louisiana, equally clueless. 

Some of the "reporting" was wildly incaccurate.  CNN was the worst offender, spinning myths of racism and indifference to suffering.  Bush was made the villain. 

Now it's Obama's turn to tackle the Louisiana coast.  See the brave president fly over.  See his concern for afflicted, oppressed populations.  See his super-competent agencies.  Hear his eloquent words.  See the contrast with Bush, who'd only been governor of Texas and naturally had no knowledge of the region.

Get out the seasickness pills.  It's going to be a bumpy night. 

May 1, 2010