A planned long weekend holiday rest and relaxation was dashed by bad news.

The Israeli attack on the humanitarian convoy and the failure to stop the BP oil disaster destroying the environment in the Gulf and states bordering that body of water.

And this pathetic administration tries to blame everyone except Israel who attacked seized the ships violating international law and did the killing.

As Ray McGovern at Consortium News writes that President Obama's timid unwillingness to stand up to Netanyahu and his right wing reactionary government can "get people killed."

"Casualty figures are still arriving in the wake of Israel’s Sunday night-Monday morning commando attack on an unarmed flotilla trying to bring relief supplies to the 1.5 million Palestinians crowded into Gaza. Already, at least nine civilian passengers aboard the ships are reported killed, and dozens wounded.

"Yet, seldom has an act of aggression been so well advertised in advance. Israel had made clear that it would use force to prevent the ships from reaching Gaza and heard no stern protest from President Obama, who apparently could not overcome his fear of Israel’s legendary political clout.

"Earlier this year, Obama did criticize Israel’s continued settlement of Palestinian areas and Netanyahu’s resistance to hold meaningful peace talks, but the President has failed to back up his words with firm action or resolve.

"For that reason, Netanyahu was left convinced that Israel could do what it wished, including dropping commandos by helicopters onto crowded ships and after an apparent clash with civilians on one of the ships, ordering the use of lethal force."

McGovern had the same deja vu thought that I did when learning about the Israeli commando attack on the flotilla:  the Israel attack in 1967 on the USS Liberty in international waters. that left 34 US sailors dead and 174 wounded.  Israel got away with murder.

He continues: "Three days into the war, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats turned their firepower on the intelligence collection ship USS Liberty in international waters after the Israelis had identified it as a U.S. Navy ship.

"The Israelis later insisted they had lost track of the ship and that the strafing was an accident in the fog of war. However, U.S. intelligence intercepted Israeli conversations at the time, indicating that the Israeli mission was to sink the ship and leave no survivors.

"Israeli commandos clad in black were about to land from helicopters and finish off what remained of the Liberty crew when Seaman Terry Halbardier (later awarded the Silver Star) slid over the Liberty’s napalm-laden deck to jury-rig an antenna and get an SOS off to the Sixth Fleet. 

"Israeli forces intercepted the SOS and quickly broke off the attack. But 34 of the Liberty crew were killed and over 170 wounded.

"To avoid exacerbating bilateral tensions, the U.S. Navy was ordered to cover up the deliberate nature of the attack, and the surviving crew was threatened with imprisonment, if they so much as told their wives.  When some of the crew later called for an independent investigation, they were hit with charges of anti-Semitism.

"One of the surviving crew of the USS Liberty, decorated Navy veteran Joe Meadors, was with the “Freedom Flotilla” when it was attacked. Meadors is past president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association."

As for the horrendous disaster inflicted on the fertile and fragile ecosystem of Gulf of Mexico and the US by the venal energy companies, Obama is complicit.  

His placatory, conciliatory, ingratiating style coupled with lack of governing instincts (about which I've written often, the latest here) set the stage for both of the above destructive events.

Paul Rosenberg at Open Left has been a member of the reality about Obama chorus with this about him:  "Obama's always been a neo-liberal, rather than a progressive, at least since he began running for office.  This rings increasingly true for me. The longer I see him in action.....

"...it's not just about government using private means to serve public ends, it's not the same old liberalism in a more "market-friendly" bottle. It's an inherently minimalist philosophy that only grasps the vaguest sense of what the old liberal rhetoric about the common good is talking about.  Because Obama is technically so damn good at doing the rhetoric when he's really on (compared to other national politicians, at least) Lakoff, like many others, falls into the trap of thinking that rhetoric expresses Obama's "true self", but by now it should be obvious that it's really just a talent he has that makes him stand head and shoulders above all the rest of the neo-liberal pack.

"That's the fundamental reason why Obama hit dribblers in the press conference: because neo-liberalism is all about the dribblers. Don't swing for the fences, it says.  Don't go for single-payer--or even for a robust public option that would lead to single-payer over time--even though it's what's needed to dramatically cut the over-priced costs of healthcare "system".  Don't go for a $1.3 trillion stimulus, even though that's what the macro-economics tells you is needed to really jolt the economy out of the recession, preserve necessary state and local services and put people back to work sooner, rather than much, much later. Don't go for a dramatic shift to clean energy, energy efficiency and massive investments in green jobs, even though that's what the science says is absolutely necessary to avoid a coming climate catastrophe.

"Obama wasn't just intimidated into dropping empathy--both the word and the idea--since he was inaugurated and the right began its vicious attacks.  He grew up in a political environment that was entirely hostile to empathy, and he adapted to that environment.  Of course, making a show of empathy was an absolute requirement, given the constituency he came from.  But nothing is a stronger bulwark against grasping the logic and power of empathy.........than a political lifetime of faking it.  And that, sadly, is the bottom line of Obama's politics, the bottom line of neo-liberalism and the third "Third Way."

"....they [neo-liberals like Obama] actually believe their own BS.  They believe that they share the same goals as genuine progressives, but only want to achieve them through different, more "rational", more "market-friendly means.  They have thoroughly convinced themselves that they really do care--at least the non-sociopaths among them.  But when it comes down to actual results, there's simply no there there.  Which is why, for example, it's entirely irrelevant to them that charter schools show no better performance than traditional public schools.  What matters to them is the rhetoric not the reality."