Oil and vinegar

"A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday blocked a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling projects that the Obama administration imposed after a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico...In a 22-page opinion, Judge Martin L.C. Feldman of United States District Court...wrote that the Obama administration had failed to justify the need for such 'a blanket, generic, indeed punitive moratorium' on deep-water oil and gas drilling." (Charlie Savage, The New York Times, June 22, 2010)

Whenever I'm tempted to lose faith in the Obama administration -- no more than twice a day -- I try to remember that had John McCain been elected, this is the kind of petro-whore he would be appointing to the Supreme Court. Everybody's Supreme Court, not just poor, ravaged Louisiana's. Then Barry doesn't look so bad.

But as the rightzis line up to kiss BP's ass, I also find myself wondering what a real populist like Huey Long would be doing if he were governor instead of Slumdog Exorcist. For one, I think he'd find a way to sink BOB, Tony Hayward's toy boat. When he had everyone's attention, the Kingfish would invite BP executives in for a chat -- and when I say "invite," I mean dispatch state troopers to drag them off the golf courses and squash courts. When they were assembled in his office, he'd lean back in his chair and say:

"Gentlemen, I think you ought to know that under a law my legislature will be passing in a few days, I have frozen all BP's assets in Louisiana. After every individual and every business has been made whole, and every inch of our beautiful coast is pristine, y'all can have the balance back. Now I understand you may think you have grounds for a legal challenge of my action. Feel free to sue us. My attorney general Joe Bob here tells me that by the time your action comes to trial, there won't be much oil left on this planet. Also, if it looks like your cheap-jack methods cost eleven men their lives, well, I'm real sorry to have to tell you that Angola Prison Farm has no squash courts. You can go now. Every man a king, dum da dum dee dee...."

When it gets this bad, I'll take a mean redneck populist over a patrician law professor any time. You don't have to like Long's methods to acknowledge that they got highways, hospitals and LSU built. Just tell me how to rein a demagogue in when the need has passed, because nobody has found a way to do that short of assassination. Which we at the Sky do not support.