WHEN EVEN THE COAST GUARD IS AGAINST YOU – AT 8:44 A.M. ET:  Amidst all the chaos in the world, this was almost overlooked.  Remember the Gulf oil spill last year, the one that threatened to destroy America and the entire Universe until Barack Obama stood on the Louisiana beaches, raised his arm and proclaimed, "Hark, oil stop, in the name of me!"

Well, okay, not quite. 

It turns out the administration's anemic response to the emergency was even more pathetic than we'd thought.  The assessment comes from a study now published by the Coast Guard.  From Fox:

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration failed to set up an "effective" communications system during last year's BP oil spill and threatened its own credibility by "severely restricting" the release of "timely, accurate information," according to a newly released report commissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Quietly posted on the Coast Guard's website two weeks ago, the report offers the first major assessment of the federal government's communications efforts during the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"Several layers of review and approval by the White House and (Department of Homeland Security) prevented timely and effective crisis communications and hindered the Coast Guard's ability to ... (keep) stakeholders informed about the status of the response," the report reads, adding that "accurate and timely messaging from the response organization improves transparency with the public."

Information centers in Houma, La., and Mobile, Ala. -- established by the Coast Guard in accordance with pre-set plans for major disasters -- were "effectively muted," the report reads.

Photographs could not be released without Washington's blessing, and Coast Guard officials leading efforts on the ground "were not authorized to conduct media interviews, hold press conferences or send press releases without prior approval from DHS," according to the report.

COMMENT:  Change we can believe in.  Transparency in government, etc., etc.   But please notice that there's not a peep out of the mainstream media.  Compare please to the reporting of Katrina, in which Bush was blamed for everything but the rain itself.

No, there's no press bias.  Nothing to see here.  Nothing to see.

March 29, 2011