Investigations, Delegations, and Flybys, But No Answers to the Gulf Oil Spill

Federal officials are making their way to Louisiana tomorrow to "inspect the ongoing response" to the horrible oil spill in the Gulf.

Courtesy of BP, you can watch the oil spill live, here.  The stuff coming out of that pipe is both natural gas and oil.

 There's also a Facebook page where you can keep up with things.

According to NOLA...

Salazar, Napolitano and the Senate delegation will conduct a flyover of the affected areas, discuss the latest response efforts in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast with federal officials leading the effort as well as BP representatives, and meet with Gov. Bobby Jindal and local community and industry leaders.

The Senate delegation will be made up of Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Mary Landrieu, D-La., and David Vitter, R-La.

How many "visits" have we had so far by federal officials?  Is it helping yet?  What in the hell are these people doing, anyway?  Oh lordy, I can only imagine the yelling and screaming if the George W. Bush administration was acting like this.

Double standards abound.

Meanwhile, Robert Gibbs reports that the Justice Department is "gathering information."  I feel so much better now.  That'll fix it.

BP is planning to execute a "top kill" this week - an attempt to shoot mud into the well to stop the leak.  It's been tried on land but never at this depth.  I hope it works but it sounds like they're just grasping at straws.  If this doesn't work, they're going to shoot "junk" in there (tires, rope, etc.; literally, junk.)

One LSU expert says "the untold millions of gallons of oil already fouling the Gulf off the Louisiana coast could stay in the area for at least a decade, and on the sea floor for more than 100 years."

The AP Photo above is of Barataria Bay which is a nesting area for brown pelicans, terns, gulls, and spoonbills.  Oil and sludge is washing up now all along the Louisiana coastline and the latest trajectory projection at this time puts it as far as Pensacola, along not making landfall there, yet.  Obviously, this spill impacts the entire Gulf.

And let's point out one more time, Obama is golfing and throwing lavish State Dinners while this is happening. But it's okay; he's "investigating" and sending a delegation.  Feel better now?

(More at Memeorandum)

Update:  Also, see Professor Jacobson.

(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)