A Senseless Ultimatum

Throwing BP out won’t help close off the oil leak and stop the already rampant oil spill.

The USA is flexing its muscles. The threat “We’ll get you” isn’t being directed at some rogue terrorist regime this time, but at the British oil company BP. If their engineers aren’t soon successful in plugging the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, the United States says it will do it alone.

At least that’s what U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, has announced — and probably shocked even himself with his own courage. The fact is, BP probably can’t successfully stop the leak and keep the oil from spreading. Who is supposed to take on this dirty job, then? ExxonMobil, perhaps?

Unlike Germany and many other countries, the U.S. Department of the Interior isn’t responsible for national internal security; its mission is to regulate the use of public lands, including the granting of oil drilling permits. But a good dozen of its bureaucrats were involved in a corruption scandal as recently as 2008: dozens of its staff members granted permits in exchange for a lot of sex, drugs and other goodies.

It’s understandable that Salazar wants to repair the poor image his agency had prior to his coming on board. But he needs to remain firmly rooted in reality unless President Obama actually plans to accept the repeated offers of assistance from Iran. Oh, wait: Obama already has the Nobel Peace Prize.