As much as I'd like to lump it on the President - and I will for other things - I can't fault him for staying out. I'd really like to know what exactly the government could be doing in this situation that BP isn't. I'm sure if the Feds had a panacea to this leaking well - it would have been used a long time ago regardless of whether BP had operational control or not.

What I will blame the President for is his typical knee-jerk reactionary mandate against all offshore drilling 500' or deeper. For 50 years, the drilling industry has been running a safe operation in the Gulf. One horrible mistake and now more than 100,000 jobs could be affected.

I know first hand from a friend who is consulting for an oil services company that is active in the gulf that these rigs cannot sit still for even a month - and his clients are relocating their rigs to western africa if the mandate persists.

With today's economy in the shambles that its in - can we really afford, both in terms of decreased domestic supply, and labor force, to live with this mandate?

Also - BP does not have limitless resources. It might seem like it to you - but a problem of this scale will drain even the biggest coffers. BP will be driven to bankruptcy and good luck getting any claims from them then.