Project Katrina

In an effort to garner some positive press coverage while Obama tours the world, the McCain campaign came up with the idea for a photo-op by having him give a speech from an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, right off the Louisiana coast.

But just an hour after the photo-op was finalized and the media was alerted, the event was canceled. The reason the campaign cited was bad weather caused by Hurricane Dolly.

But was the weather the real reason for the cancellation? Maybe the McCain “mind trust” didn’t want to visit the rig if the reporters on hand might notice the smell of diesel wafting through the French Quarter.

The Coast Guard closed 29 miles of the Mississippi River at New Orleans after a 600-foot tanker and a barge loaded with fuel oil collided Wednesday, breaking the barge in half.

Nobody was injured, but more than 419,000 gallons of heavy, almost tar-like fuel oil spilled from the barge, forming a slick 12 miles long, said Lt. Cdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau, a Coast Guard spokeswoman. […]

The double-hulled tanker Tintomara was loaded with about 4.2 million gallons of biodiesel and nearly 1.3 million gallons of styrene, but was not leaking, said Michael Wilson, president of ship management company Laurin Maritime (America) Inc. in Houston.

The collision occurred about 1:30 a.m. CDT just upriver from the Crescent City Connection, a pair of bridges between New Orleans’ east and west banks. A smell which many people thought was diesel was noticeable in the French Quarter and parts of New Orleans’ central business district.

This maybe the only smart decision the McCain camp make this week. Nothing says we can “drill safely” like an oil spill that closes 29 miles of the Mississippi River.