Congratulations to the Obama administration. I didn't think it was possible for them to think up one more way to waste taxpayer's money so this came as something of a surprise.

The White House hired a New Orleans man to report on media reaction to their efforts to clean up the oil spill:

NPR reports on an AP article detailing how the White House became very interested in media coverage of the disaster:

Reporters for the Associated Press sifted through hundreds of government contracts inked during the Gulf Coast oil spill, which total some $142 million. That is "a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars [the Obama administration] has spent so far," the wire service says.

According to the AP, "the federal government hired a New Orleans man for $18,000 to appraise whether news stories about its actions in the Gulf oil spill were positive or negative for the Obama administration, which was keenly sensitive to comparisons between its response and former President George W. Bush's much-maligned reaction to Hurricane Katrina."

Tax dollars for political activity? That's a no-no, as you well know. The FEC and the DoJ may want to look into this matter. Yeah, right.

This administration has been terrified that their words of criticism about George Bush are going to come back and haunt them. We've seen it with Gitmo, Iraq, Afghanistan, taxes - and on and on. Any time the press tries to point out that they are doing what the Bush team did, they are quick with the denials. This contract is simply a more tangible way to express that fear.

Look quick because this story is going to disappear down the rabbit hole very soon.