Solyndra: The Final Nail in Obama's Coffin?

If you thought that the defeat of Democrat David Weprin in New York's 9th district is Obama's biggest concern, you are mistaken. The stench from the half-billion-dollar loan to bankrupt solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra continues to grow. In a Washington Post article entitled "Solyndra loan: White House pressed on review of solar company now under investigation" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-pushed-500-million-loan-to-solar-company-now-under-investigation/2011/09/13/gIQAr3WbQK_story.html?hpid=z1), written by Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig, we now learn that WAPO is in possession of e-mails that are highly incriminatory of the White House:

"The August 2009 e-mails, released exclusively to The Washington Post, show White House officials repeatedly asking OMB [Office of Management and Budget] reviewers when they would be able to decide on the federal loan and noting a looming press event at which they planned to announce the deal. In response, OMB officials expressed concern that they were being rushed to approve the company’s project without adequate time to assess the risk to taxpayers, according to information provided by Republican congressional investigators.

. . . .

'We have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week),' one official wrote. That Aug. 31, 2009, message, written by a senior OMB staffer and sent to Terrell P. McSweeny, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, concluded, 'We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews.'

White House officials said Tuesday that no one in the administration tried to influence the OMB decision on the loan. They stressed that the e-mails show only that the administration had a 'quite active interest' in the timing of OMB’s decision."

This scandal is not going to disappear and will accompany Obama throughout the 2012 campaign. It will be interesting to witness the administration's attempts at damage control, which will ultimately necessitate firings of senior West Wing staff.

Watch Obama's hair grow grayer in the coming months, as the dark side of solar energy panels emerges.