BWAHAHAHAHA! You call what he’s been doing, doing his job?
BWAHAHAHAHA!

Fareed Zakaria sums this up quite nicely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaejBVWifV8

By my calculations, $20 billion translates into $5 million per mile of gulf coast line. As for the relief well?

Well, here is where that prayer part comes in:) And I’m telling you this as an engineer. That relief well is your only real hope right now. Thankfully, the Administration made them drill two, the second one started 14 days after the first. BP only wanted to drill one unsurprisingly. There was talk about the relief well leaking, but all wells in the gulf, relief or otherwise, leak profusely. The gulf itself actually leaks up methane and oil naturally.

What I and other people ranging in political inclinations talked about today was the media. Someone said that Keith Olbermann didn’t even wait for the President to finish speaking before he started telling people what to think. I predicted there would be backlash against our disconnected media bubble, and sure enough, the behavior of Keith Olberman and Chris “vuvuzela” Matthews already made it into a Newsweek Column:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/16/pundits-like-that-are-the-only-people-here.html#

I actually turned to Faux to watch the Frank Luntz panel. I never, ever thought I would defend Faux, but at least they had the decency to ask people what they thought. First they were in a swoon bubble. then they were in a hatred bubble. It’s still a bubble.

I got a coupon for free Kool-Aid today. I laughed.

Al Gore said it in 1998, but now a former oil man says we have to get rid of the combustion engine. Ratigan has been the most important broadcaster on finreg & the BP blowout no matter the network.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

LO after Maddow is some block.

I think Lawrence O is brilliant. I have been waiting for this. Starting with Keith I think the MSNBC line-up is now complete.

In the coming days and weeks, these efforts should capture up to 90% of the oil leaking out of the well. This is until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that is expected to stop the leak completely. – Pres. Barack Obama

Some of what he said was not only stretching, but unprovable and unsubstantiated in any way, including that BP hasn’t delivered on squat as far as the oil blowout. Not to mention that Obama is acting like the relief well is a (ahem) slam dunk when it is anything but.

Today they delivered on cash and halted dividends for now. Great news, absolutely.

Though, again, what the hell his political team is thinking by sending him out there last night saying prayers and opining we don’t know how we’ll get there, the day before the BP meet, is malpractice. The latest developments only prove our case where last night’s OOA is concerned.

Last night, Obama went on National TV and said he’d make BP pay. And he did.

$20 billion. BP will not pay any further dividends this year. And there is no cap or limit on liability.

This doesn’t make up for the Administrations failings in this disaster. But as people have been saying, that’s one butt kicked and many media elites humiliated. Watch how fast these guys change their tune.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/16/keith-olbermann-defends-c_n_614307.html

I enjoy his show, but he’s no Lawrence O’Donnell (getting a 10 pm show, by the way).

Now, about that $20 billion fund, let us wait until the dust settles before we begin uncorking the champagne. Where corporate power is concerned nothing ever goes as Obama says it does.

Moreover, no one ever listens to him anyway. The bankers found a way to shell out even larger bonuses after he warned them to stop; the Hondurans went right ahead with their coup and got away with it and he backed down and did nothing; Bibi went ahead with his settlements after Obama vowed he was not going to tolerate any more settlements, why then should BP be the only fools to toe the line? WHO fears him?