The Obama Administration used taxpayer funds to hire a media consultant charged with monitoring news coverage of the BP oil spill that may have been politically negative for the administration. Furthermore, the White House awarded a significant no-bid contract to an environmental group with a history of attacking Sarah Palin’s record.

Both revelations come from a mandatory disclosure of contracts that was analyzed and published by the Daily Mail. The total cost to taxpayers for the two shady deals was $234,625.

The U.S. government paid an expert $18,000 to assess whether news stories about the Gulf oil spill were positive or negative for the Obama administration, it was revealed today.

And it awarded a $216,625 no-bid contract for a survey of seabirds to an environmental group that has criticised what it calls the ‘extreme anti-conservation record’ of Sarah Palin.

The hired media consultant, John Brooks Rice, was paid $9,000 per month to monitor news coverage and provide a summary report to the White House. The contract was again no-bid.

‘From reading and watching the media I would create reports,’ he said. ‘I reported either positive coverage, negative coverage, misinformation coverage.’

In other words, it was a political job for which taxpayers were charged $18,000.

The report says the administration is still considering whether or not to charge oil company BP for the Obama family’s trips to the Gulf region. Seriously. And other listed expenses are vague at best.

Yet the government’s new contracting data includes errors and vague entries that make it difficult to identify wasteful spending. It spent $52,000 on a boat charter described merely as “marine charter for things,” with no further explanation.

“Marine charter for things”. Government accountability and transparency at its best. Actually, it gets better:

The Coast Guard provided the AP with a copy of two of Rice’s printouts of news stories but didn’t respond to a request for copies of his reports rating the tone of news stories. Rice said he had already deleted them.

AP requested copies of all Rice’s reports under the Freedom of Information Act but hasn’t received them.

How convenient! The Coast Guard won’t provide the information, Rice deleted the copies, and the federal government hasn’t responded to Freedom of Information Act requests. All part of the new era of transparency.