As a member of the Professional Left, I'm sorry to say that my attitude toward the Gulf oil spill cleanup is that the glass is not even half-full. I'm sorry to say it, because it's an implied criticism of the administration and it will make poor Bobby Gibbs cry. I think it's got to be said, loudly and often: This seafood is not safe to eat.

From the Solve Climate blog:

HOPEDALE, LA.— In the small towns of coastal Louisiana, the widespread consensus is that the oil is far from gone.Fishermen return from working on cleanup crews or from recreational angling trips with stories of crabs whose lungs are black with oil, or of oysters with shells covered in sludge. They take photos and carry tarballs home like talismans to show what they have seen. They talk about their fears with anyone who will listen, and often their voices are tinged with panic.

Yet a government report released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that 75 percent of the oil has been cleaned up, dispersed or otherwise contained. And the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that of all the samples of seafood that have been tested since the oil spill, none have shown evidence of contamination.

While some in the coastal seafood industry agree with these assessments, a majority seem to view the news with a sense of betrayal.

"The cleanup isn't even close to being done," said Karen Hopkins of Dean Blanchard Seafood, which accounts for about 11 percent of the U.S. shrimp supply, on the barrier island of Grand Isle.

"The last thing I want to do is scare anyone away from the seafood down here," said Dawn Nunez, standing at the counter of the shrimp wholesale business and deli she owns in the tiny fishing town of Hopedale. "But if I’m not eating it or feeding it to my children, I can’t advise anyone else to eat it either."

On their dock across the street, Dawn's husband Marty Nunez pulls a clump of oil-ridden marsh grass out of a plastic bag.

"There's people fishing where this is at – or worse than this," he said. "I can't understand how they say things are getting back to normal."

Nunez surreptitiously picked the grass while working as part of BP'sVessels of Opportunity cleanup operation on Monday. For him the oil-soaked grass is a symbol of a lurking threat. Like many other people living along the coast, Nunez is confident that vast quantities of oil remain in the environment, despite highly publicized announcements to the contrary.

"Our fishermen bring home grass and tarballs and then we watch the news and they say there is no sign of oil," said Dawn Nunez. "Where did it go? Where did millions of gallons of oil go if it's not in the Gulf?"

A widely held theory is that the 1.8 million gallons of dispersants that were sprayed during the cleanup operation caused the oil to sink to the bottom.

Maybe this will cheer up Bobby Gibbs: I'm not singling out Obama for this. I firmly believe that anyone we elected would have supported this endless war -- the economic and political systems of the elite are too intertwined for anyone to even think about ending it completely:

Reporting from Besmaya, Iraq —
Iraq will need U.S. military support for up to another decade to defend its borders because the Iraqi army won't be ready to guard the country when American troops leave at the end of 2011, according to U.S. and Iraqi commanders.

Commanders say they are reasonably confident in the Iraqi security forces' ability to keep order while facing insurgents or other internal threats. But when it comes to their capacity to protect against attacks from other nations, it is inconceivable that the Iraqi army will be able to stand alone by the time U.S. troops go home, said Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, commander of the U.S. military training program in Iraq.

Almost certainly, he said, there will have to be some form of continued U.S. military presence beyond 2011 — a tough sell for Americans eager to see a rapid withdrawal — to protect against external threats and to provide the training necessary to eventually bring the Iraqi army up to scratch.

The gravest concern may be Iraq's inability to defend its airspace in a region bristling with missiles and fighter planes as well as longstanding jealousies and a history of wars involving border disputes. The Iraqi government placed its first order for 18 U.S. F-16 fighter jets in March, but the earliest they're expected to arrive is 2013.

"I would say we're five years into a 10-15 year program," said Brig. Gen. Scott Hanson, who heads the U.S. mission in charge of training the Iraqi air force. "We're on a glide path, but we're not in the final stages of approach."

Robert Gibbs is one of those guys who has a way of delivering a left hook straight to the jaw while speaking softly with a wide smile. He's in rare form here, in response to FOX News' Wendell Goler's wide-eyed question about whether the oil disaster in the Gulf is Obama's Katrina.

Q As for critics who are calling this your Katrina, is there -- President Obama’s Katrina --

MR. GIBBS: Can I say this -- I watched FOX yesterday.

Q I really didn’t want you to go there. (Laughter.)

MR. GIBBS: But you sort of -- you opened both the double doors and voila, here I am. (Laughter.)

Q But it wasn’t just FOX calling this your Katrina.

MR. GIBBS: No, no, but FOX had the very special and unique interview with Michael Brown -- you opened it and I had to do it -- who for those who weren’t let in on the big secret, Mr. Brown, FEMA Director Brown under Katrina, intimated on FOX, and it wasn’t -- I will editorially say, didn’t appear to be pushed back on real hard -- that this spill was leaked on purpose in order for us to walk back our environmental and drilling decisions, and that the leak that we did on purpose got out of control and now is too big to contain.

So suffice to say, Wendell --

Q What is his attribution? What is his -- Mr. Brown’s attribution?

MR. GIBBS: I can only wish that the network that you work for had asked that prior to interviewing him yesterday.

Q But reporters in here asked that.

MR. GIBBS: Well, you should --

Q So I’m asking you --

MR. GIBBS: You should call headquarters, my friend, and --

Q I’m asking you --

MR. GIBBS: -- ask for somebody who makes the decisions to put people like that -- because I got to tell you, Wendell, I’m not entirely sure that a factual answer that I might give to any one of your questions is going to change the notion that your network put out the former FEMA director to make an accusation that the well had been purposely set off in order to change an offshore drilling decision.

Q Nor would that affect the reporting I do.

MR. GIBBS: I didn’t intimate that it did. Again, I would -- you and Major should --

Q If we can, let’s move on from it.

MR. GIBBS: You could get on a conference call and maybe do some work. Go ahead.

While I'm certain it was lost on the hapless Wendell Goler, it was a delicious moment for me. In one short, clipped response Gibbs let everyone in the room know exactly how stupid those FOX News reporters are, with a crinkly little grin and a wink. Well done.

(h/t Daily Kos)

There have been a number of right wing protesters showing up at Democratic town hall meetings with guns over the past couple of weeks, even at events held by President Obama. Many have made note that countless people were shoved into cages called "free speech zones," or arrested at events held by former president George Bush for merely wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, yet people have been allowed to openly carry loaded weapons while protesting against Obama, for the most part without incident. How many of you have either posted or said aloud something along the lines of the following statement:

Can you imagine what would would have happened if a protester had brought a loaded gun to a Bush event?

Of course, that protester would have been tased, beaten, arrested and labeled a terrorist -- but times have changed:

Armed men seen mixing with protesters outside recent events held by President Obama acted within the law, the White House said Tuesday, attempting to allay fears of a security threat.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. "There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally," he said. "Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality."

Not everyone agrees:

"What Gibbs said is wrong," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Individuals carrying loaded weapons at these events require constant attention from police and Secret Service officers. It's crazy to bring a gun to these events. It endangers everybody." Read on...

Personally, I believe it's just a matter of time before one of these gun-toting, Fox News-inspired whackjobs take a shot at the president or a Democratic member of Congress.

Helen's right, damn it. And look at Gibbs' deflection: "We've had a pretty good week." Sorry, Gibby, health-care reform is slowly slipping away. Don't just stand there.

Here are my thoughts on what the White House did wrong, in no particular order:

1) Obama outsourced the legislation to Congress instead of presenting it himself and working with them to write the details. He thought he'd outsmart the GOP by doing the opposite of the Clinton plan, but instead the bill is now lost on a sea of "compromise."

2) Bipartisanship. You just can't work with ideologues who refuse to operate in good faith. They're true believers, they will never give an inch. You'd think Obama would have picked up that little lesson while studying the Clinton era.

3) Blue Dogs. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi need to come up with new strategies, since kissing their collective Blue Dog butts only inflates their already-swollen egos. Someone (Obama?) should lay down the law. Put them in the worst offices, cut their staff budgets until they cooperate. Lyndon Johnson wouldn't be holding their hands.

4) Single payer. It would have been so much easier if we'd started with it. Hell, we might even have won - and it's simple enough that most people would understand. But whatever.

5) He should have come out fighting for the public option earlier this year. Instead, he let the opponents (and the insurance companies) define the public perception. BIG rookie mistake.

6) It's one thing to meet with relevant stakeholders (insurance companies, Big Pharma, etc.) It's another thing to trust them. (See Otter, "Animal House": "You f***ed up, you trusted me!")

7) He should have included a public advocate to speak for ordinary people in every healthcare meeting. (Hell, does he even HAVE a public advocate? Because he should. I'm available.)

8 ) Obama is just not good at explaining complicated things to ordinary people, especially when he's not working from a script. He drones on and goes off on tangents. He should use more surrogates, Michelle might have done a better job. Hell, Bo might have done a better job. (I understand the political reasons he didn't ask Bill Clinton, but that may have been a fatal error. The Big Dog would have sold the hell out of the healthcare plan.)

9) The President should have made it clear from the beginning that the main focus of this bill is to make life better for Americans. All that blah blah blah about "bending the cost curve" and "controlling costs" only fed the public paranoia about rationing. (All he had to do was compare the public option to the assigned risk pool for auto insurance, and they would have gotten it.) Yes, in one of his speeches, he talked about how the bill would give everyone security, but when you're selling something, you need to stay on message. He's given us so many reasons why we should support this bill, I can't even remember them all - and I'm actually paying attention!

10) Don't negotiate from the middle, damn it. Ask for the moon and stars, and work your way toward the middle, or risk people thinking you're a corporatist tool. (Ahem.)

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Barack Obama opens up to CBS's Harry Smith about why he's suspending his campaign at the most crucial time in order to go see his sick grandmother. This is some pretty powerful stuff.

Harry Smith: You've said in the past that you regretted - your own mother's illness - and her death came so quickly. You didn't have time to get back to see her.

Barack Obama: Yeah, got there too late. ... We knew - she wasn't doing well. But you know, the diagnosis was such that we thought we had a little more time, and we didn't. And so I want to make sure that I don't - I don't make - the same mistake twice.

Andrew Sullivan puts it perfectly:

If you have read Obama's memoir, you will immediately understand why he would suspend a national campaign for the most powerful job on earth to be with his grandmother right now. One gets the impression from Robert Gibbs and from this decision that this might indeed be one of the last chances he gets. "Toot" was a formative figure - she brought him up with her husband during some critical years. Her death would be the death of his last parent. Reading about her again tonight, you can see where Obama's personal social conservatism comes from. There's a lot more Kansas in Obama than most people on the right seem to think.

Anyone who thought the end to the Schiavo case would actually be the end to the Schiavo case are sadly mistaken. What would stop a Circus Clown like Gibbs to move on? There is too much money to be made. Remember he said this gem in front of a court of law: via Hard Ball

"He said, if they put her—allow her to die because of natural causes, not getting food and drink, whatever, that‘s disobeying the Vatican. And that could create additional damnation of her soul or add to the time of her suffering in purgatory."

Gibbs told the AP that he believes

"McCabe rushed the report, noting that he never interviewed the Schindlers about what happened the day before or the day of the collapse."We had thought they would meet with the family," he said"

How is interviewing the family relevant to anything that happened to Terri if they weren't there? As my WV friend always says: Serentity Now

(Update)- reg/req-Ave Maria creates Terri Schiavo scholarship: Likening Terri Schiavo to St. Therese, the Little Flower, the Rev. Michael Beers hinted Schiavo, too, could be canonized. Friday, the Rev. Joseph Fessio, AMU provost, "When people say 'persistent, vegetative state' and you see this smiling young woman, is that what it is?" Fessio asked, rhetorically.

Keith goes through the various cast of characters and interviews some as he gets JAY WOLFSON, TERRI SCHIAVO‘S FORMER GUARDIAN as well as former Schiavo family attorney David Gibbs on to do an analysis. Gibbs tries to spin the results as best as he can. Also there is a greatest hits collection of some of the wingnuts who had some rather bizzare statements.

Video-WMP

Arianna says: Bill Frist may be a lousy Senate Majority Leader, but it seems that we’re all better off that he left medicine...read on

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Ken Sanders of NBC said outside the courthouse: It appears to me that he(the judge) was listening rather closely to the arguments...

What was he supposed to be doing you jackass?

"One of the arguments David Gibbs II, attorney for the Schindlers made was that since the removal had already taken place, the State judge's order has been met so to re-insert the tube would not be a violation..."

Let's hope the judge rules quickly in this case.

Father Richard McBrien from Notre Dame was on The Factor tonight discussing the Schiavo case when he and Bill were talking about some outrageuous statements that were being made.

Bill:... the rhetoric is stunning father does it disturb you?

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Father:...Of course it disturbs me, it's distressing...

When the Father told Bill that the Schindler's lawyer (David Gibbs) said that Terri Schiavo would suffer eternal damnation...

Bill: That's the fringe stuff , these people..

Father: FRINGE, he's the lawyer, this person is the lawyer for the Schindler's parents...

Bill: I have to see what the context was...

The context was: via transcripts from Hardball:

MATTHEWS: But this is what David Gibbs said, the lawyer for the family, the Schindlers, the parents. He said, if they put her—allow her to die because of natural causes, not getting food and drink, whatever, that‘s disobeying the Vatican. And that could create additional damnation of her soul or add to the time of her suffering in purgatory. What is a secular... What is a secular lawyer arguing before a secular court that this could mean more time in purgatory for this woman?

"O'Reilly's only intension was to try and drag the left into the mud with the radical religious element, without ever mentioning a hateful thing the left has said on this issue. I never thought I would see a Father call O'Reilly on his own spin."