Turned on Fox News for a second to watch Megyn Kelly going on and on about the oil disaster and how people were right to be mad at President Obama for not reacting fast enough. Which seems odd since Fox News were the leaders in the "Where's the Oil?" and "It's not that big of a deal." camp when the crisis first started (not to mention usually favoring Drill Baby Drill. Them being mad at Obama is like a guy who refuses to wear a condom getting mad at his girlfriend for getting pregnant. It's ridiculous. Even worse was the crap they were spewing when the spill first started. People kept citing the fact that there's a lot of oil on the bottom of the sea from natural seepage so this spill wouldn't make that much of a difference. That's like saying waterboarding isn't torture because human bodies are 70% water. "It's not like we were putting anything into the Gitmo prisoners that wasn't already there."

Although perhaps the craziest part of this whole issue is how poorly the White House is handling the PR angle. First the President doesn't seem that taken by the issue and now he's saying pandering remarks like he's looking to kick people's asses about the spill. Of course, on that same day, the White House also called for the end to the moratorium on exploring new off-shore wells so it seems like a rather hollow gesture. Overall, the White House's dealings with the press have been abysmal. George W. Bush proved that you could spew nonsense but the right tone would keep the people appeased, as long as you were ahead of the curve. Claim "Mission Accomplished" and people will overlook the fact that nothing's changed or that the toughest part of the mission hadn't even started yet.

The absolute collapse of the Obama PR machine and relationship with the press has been completely demoralizing. I never thought he'd be able to pull off a lot of his ideas because of the stranglehold that special interests have on the Capitol and the fact that too many politicians are set in their ways but he can't seem to sell anything to the public and the Republicans, with no especially competent public speakers in office, manage to put him on the defensive in every situation. Also, the promise of transparency just makes his detachment from the press even more striking. It's like he thought he was going to be "transparent" on his own terms.

The blame game surrounding the oil mess, with the left blaming Bush/Cheney and the Republicans finding a flaw in whatever Obama does, can't mask the fact that the White House is simply incapable of controlling their message and consistently screw up their responses to events, big or small. Unforunately, Obama can't have a beer with the oil spill at the White House to try to smooth this one over.