Virtually unreported by the national media - because it might detract from President Obama's victory lap over the U.S.'s successful targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden - is the greatest flood on the Mississippi River and lower parts of the Ohio River since 1937.

The "Father of Waters," as President Lincoln called the Mississippi, is on a historic rampage. Almost no one now living remembers such a river crest.

The levees were blown on the Missouri side of the river, below Cairo, last Monday night. Memphis is being surrounded by water. New Orleans will not even see the river crest before Memorial Day Weekend.

Are radio stations playing - as they did after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coasts - Randy Newman's great  "Louisiana 1927"? Is CNN going wall-to-wall?

Nope.

Is it because the people mostly affected by the Great Mississippi Flood of 2011 are Republican? Is it because George W. Bush is no longer President?

You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment.

The great Mississippi floods of 1937 and 1927 had a great economic and political impact on the course of American history. The 1927 Flood helped make Herbert Hoover president. It also triggered the Great Migration of African Americans to Chicago, Detroit, Gary and other Northern cities. Both floods led to the construction by the federal government of the network of levees, spillways and dams which will, hopefully, help avoid a repetition of 1937.

To read how bad things are, here is a link to the Memphis Commercial Appeal's website. Updated regularly.        

What might this historic flood mean? Well, no one's talking, no one's predicting.

Because doing so might affect the chances of That Man in the White House to win re-election in 2012.