When important news isn't that newsy around here

THE PRESIDENTIAL oil-spill commission has reported that Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton, had used unstable cement on the deepwater platform that exploded in the Gulf and triggered the worst oil spill in history. Ho, hum. What else is new about Halliburton, which has enjoyed billions of dollars in government contracts for its less than reassuring work. Besides, Halliburton blames BP for not being more vigilant. How's that? If the big gorilla was aware of the weakness, shouldn't bells and whistles have gone off to alert everyone along the line ? Ho hum, again. But you don't call attention to soiled laundry.. Even reports in today's media in northern Ohio seemed to ho-hum the report from the commission. The Plain Dealer stuck a short piece on Pg. 4 and the Beacon Journal ran a single paragraph on Pg. 2. The only informative paper that arrived at my door (that leftist "rag", the NY Times) strung out two accounts on the front page, then jumped inside with the remainder , plus a photo and illustration. It is what it is these days, and I wouldn't look for it to get better.

Bobby Jindal: Do as I rant, not as I do

SO THERE WAS Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal , his arms outstretched in a cruciform moment, on the front page of Saturday's New York Times. The governor is again letting it be known that he doesn't think much of the feds' response to the oil spill. He says so every day , perhaps with a lingering memory of how he flopped in a TV response to President Obama in what seems like eons ago. If so, it's a quirky way of rehabbing your political image outside of Louisiana when a lot of folks doubtless remember walking away from the TV set from his unwashed voyage into la-la politics.

Problem is, he seems to have nobody to blame except his own hyperventilating response to the spill. As CBS news has pointed out, Jindal asked for federal (ich!) help and received word from the Oval Office that the state would receive a helluva lot of support paid by BP. He was authorized to deploy 6,000 National Guardsmen two months ago. So far, he's only come through with 1,053 of the 6,000 available.

The Republican governors in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi are doing even worse. There's a certain amount of speculation in those states that the sight of guardsmen on the beaches and elsewhere would scare off tourists. Alas, it used to be only worrisome hurricanes and alligators.

Unraging Obama: No straw to fix the oil leak

NOW THAT President Obama's "rage index" has become a...eh...raging issue in the national media, I have taken some time from my yard work to find out what I've been missing. With the BP oil spill, the Afghanistan war, the Israeli blockade, staggering economy and the latest comments on Barbara Boxer's hairstyle, it's understandable that the DC reporters and pundits would be forced to look elsewhere for some meatier news. Voila! Is the president raging enough? Well, whether he is or isn't, I doubt that if he would have kicked over a few flower pots on the first day of the spill that we would be any farther ahead in solving what is now the country's greatest environmental disaster.

Were the pundits really counting on a furious meltdown like a deranged King Lear in the Oval Office demanding that thunder "strike flat the thick rotundity of the world!"? Naw. Even if you are talking about obesity, which a lot of people are doing these days, no editor would allow "rotundity" to appear in a modern newspaper. And what about a reenactment of Rigoletto's explosive anger upon realizing that his daughter had been murdered , believing that she was the victim of a curse .(Actually, I believe it was a stiletto that did her in. ) "Ah, la maledizione", he cried out anyway. The curse!

The media, however, did look at Obama's cool disposition as indifference to the mess and the question came up at a recent press conference in which the CBS guy asked press Secretary Robert Gibbs for an estimate of Obama's rage. "Yes, I've seen rage from him," Gibbs replied. But Chip Reid, the TV reporter, persisted. "Can you describe it. Does he yell and scream? What does he do?"

You can see that Reid was not going to take anything less than a description of Obama climbing the walls a la Spider-Man after a lost week end. Over at Fox News, the sole arbiter of good and evil, they aren't taking Obama's rage index lightly, and have gone so far to bleep "ass" in reference to what the president says he has to kick. I don't remember. Did they bleep George Bush when he called the NY Times' Adam Clymer a "Major League asshole" and Cheney added, "Oh, yeah."? And there were no dead pelicans on the beaches, either.

And now Rupert Murdock's Times (of London) is advancing the rage index in a piece by a clearly enraged British columnist, who believes we have been much too harsh on BP.

"Barack Obama," Jonathan Leake sizzled, "has indulged in shameless partisan attacks on a foreign company for the sole purpose of boosting his popularity ahead of crucial elections due to be held in a few months time. The American press, which is notorious for its complete inability to conduct meaningful , impartial research, has gone along with Obama." Right.

There are a lot of things wrong with that thought, including the bit about partisanship, but he's entitled, I guess. But, Jonathan, before you ready the Red Coats for another trip to our chores, you should at least be aware of a real sign of official rage that would suck up some of the loose oil and dump it into the Themes.

Unfortunately, Obama says he personally can't go down into the deep and suck it up with a straw. The president will address the nation tonight on the oil spill and unless he finally agrees to take a straw down to the rig's base, nobody will be satisfied. If it were me, I would invite some of the national media critics to go down there with him.

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A liar by any other name is still a liar

FOR EVERY GRAVE and jittery event in a today's jittery world, we can always count on Pavlovian responses from Rush Limbaugh & Co. for their audiences of unquestioning true believers. The latest display of trash talking from the Right arrived within moments of the oil spill and the would-be terrorist attack in Times Square. For Limbaugh, it was the notion that President Obama had somehow managed to tip over the oil rig to further his own environmental designs, whatever they might have been. But Rushbo's more insufferably twisted report was that Faisal Shahzad, who is said to have confessed to the failed NYC plot, was a registered Democrat and Obama supporter!

"Guess what?" Limbaugh frothed. "Faisal is a registered Democrat!" He then wondered whether the abandoned SUV had an Obama sticker on it.

Guess what, Rush. Media Matters checked out the voter registration roles in Connecticut and was told by the registrar that there is no evidence that Shahzad was a registered voter.

Not that any of this will make any difference to the legions of Limbaugh followers, who want to believe. Normally, it shouldn't make any difference to the sane world, either. Uninformed people say dumb things every day. But Limbaugh's enraged voice of insidious commentary echoes through the right wing world and soon others of his ilk are repeating it without conscience.

It's tiresome. But at least we can call him on it and clearly profile him as the country's most visibly crazed liar.

In the mornings in Sicily, the street vendors push their carts along the old multi-story buildings shouting strange syllables as the residents of their apartments' upper floors lower their baskets to the sing-song vendors for a day's fresh supply of fruit and vegetables. I once asked a Sicilian what the vendors were saying.

"Saying?" he shrugged. "They're not saying anything. They're just making a lot of noise to get people to buy the lemons and tomatoes."

I wonder if Limbaugh ever tried to sell his lemons in Palermo.