Jindal's Frustration With Washington

BP has plans to execute the "top kill" solution on their bleeding well in the Gulf today.  The procedure, which attempts to pump drilling mud into the well in order to plug it, has never been tried at this depth.  Nobody sounds very optimistic.

WRNO reports, via The Dead Pelican, that the oil coming from the well is now much darker than before which is absolutely a bad sign:

Live video of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows the underwater plume getting significantly darker. A top oil engineering expert says that suggests heavier, more polluting oil is spewing out.

The color of the oil gushing from the main pipe has changed in color from medium gray to black. Two scientists noticed the change, which oil company BP downplayed as a natural fluctuation that is not likely permanent.

But engineering professor Bob Bea at the University of California at Berkeley says the color change may indicate the BP leak has hit a reservoir of more oil and less gas.

Meanwhile, Politico has a rather critical article of Governor Bobby Jindal and his frustrated response to the crisis, stopping just short of accusing Jindal of capitalizing on these events and using the spill to leverage his national status.

Jindal has been outspoken against the sluggish White House efforts to do anything but hold commissions for accountability; he's asked for more containment boom and not received it and has asked for an emergency permit to build sand berms to keep the oil off the fragile marshlands.  No satisfactory response to either.  Washington has said the berms would be expensive and might not work.

Politico is trying to shield Obama from the accusation that this spill in his "Katrina moment" and instead pushing back on Jindal, a governor genuinely concerned for his state and frustrated by the response he's getting from the government.

Meanwhile, the oil keeps coming.