Fox News has a piece tonight on their website citing seven experts who state that the Obama Administration misrepresented their position on the divisive off-shore drilling ban.  The seven experts did not recommend a ban at all, but the Obama Administration knowingly doctored a signed report by these experts to add two paragraphs after the fact which contained the ban recommendation.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was forced to apologize to the experts for doctoring their report, and then proceeded to claim the decision to ban off-shore drilling was his and Obama's.  But whose decision was it to insert a false off-shore drilling ban verbiage into a document authored and signed by these experts?  How dumb can one get?

Bad move all the way around.

First problem - I have to say, purely subjectively, that I cannot recall a President back to Gerald Ford who has lied as much and as often to the people of the United States as Barack Hussein Obama.  And here is a beautiful crystal clear example of a blatant attempt to create an entirely false logos for justifying such a drilling ban that would have crippled off-shore drilling in US territory for years to come.

Second problem - when it comes to basic economics the Obama Administration is functionally illiterate.  These Magnificent Seven experts put forth a rational, pragmatic reason rooted ultimately in the basic economics of supply and demand to argue AGAINST an off-shore ban - high demand would see idle rigs moved far away from American shores, with the most advanced and safest of these rigs going first; leaving the US with either no off-shore drilling rigs "for years" or older less safe platforms.  Despite these pragmatic, cold, hard facts, Obama stupidly instituted an off-shore ban, and Salazar even more stupidly made the direct connection between this decision and Obama. 

Third problem - On June 1, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had a press conference where he blasted the Obama administration for the delay in approving the building of temporary sand barriers to block oil from washing ashore.   Jindal noted that Obama showed up to a meeting with Jindal on the sand bar idea with "a lot of professors" in tow.  The Federal review of the sandbar proposal took so long that by the time it was partially approved, oil was already on Louisiana shores.  Here Obama waited for the "professors" to tell him what to do, and on banning off-shore drilling, he ignored other expert advice.  So what then was the point of sitting around waiting for these sandbar "professors" to make up their minds?

Today a new Gallup poll came out showing Obama's approval rating has dropped to 44%.  Earlier, there was another poll which stated approval was at 42%,  Either number is astonishingly high considering the trail of wreckage Obama leaves with whatever he touches.  And of course this presumes these numbers are not being manipulated.

On June 9, Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on the Obama presidency.  It was penetratingly insightful.  Ms Rabinowitz suggests there is predictable growing disenchantment with Obama.  Yet, as good as her editorial was - and I think it was one of the best written in recent months - I am nonetheless disturbed by the poll numbers.  Obama's approval rating should be in the toilet, not hovering where it is.  And these poll numbers leave me wondering - what's happening to America?  Why is it that so many Americans even now don't get it?  I don't have the answer, except to suppose that ignorance of what is going on in Washington and it's near, mid, and long term implications are buoying Obama's numbers.

And that leaves us right to what prompted us to start this blog in the first place:

An ignorant populace cannot sustain a democracy.