The political fallout from Jindal's book is likely to be magnified by an Interior Department inspector general report. Interior IG Mary Kendall investigated claims that the White House misrepresented the views of seven scientists who had been asked to assess the effect of a six-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. "After reviewing different drafts of the Executive Summary that were exchanged between DOI and the White House prior to its final issuance, the OIG determined that the White House edit of the original DOI draft Executive Summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by experts," Kendall said. White House energy czar Carol Browner was responsible for the revisions that prompted the outside scientists to protest publicly that they were being misrepresented by federal officials.

The only surprise in all of this is that anybody would be surprised. Or that neither Obama nor his White House spokesmen have stepped forward to deny any of the details in either Jindal's account of the Food Stamp incident or the Interior Department IG's report. After all, threatening retaliation against critics and using confrontational language in an attempt to intimidate them is par for the course for the Chicago-style gangster government that nurtured Obama and his now-former chief of staff.