OIL, SHE SAID – AT 11:26 A.M. ET:  The oil spill continues critical, as the Obama administration tries to polish its image.  From The New York Times:

HOUSTON — The Obama administration scrambled to respond on Sunday after the failure of the latest effort to kill the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. But administration officials acknowledged the possibility that tens of thousands of gallons of oil might continue pouring out until August, when two relief wells are scheduled to be completed.

“We are prepared for the worst,” said Carol M. Browner, President Obama’s climate change and energy policy adviser. “We have been prepared from the beginning.”

Even as the White House sought to demonstrate that it was taking a more direct hand in trying to solve the problem, senior officials acknowledged that the new technique BP will use to try to cap the leak — severing the riser pipe and placing a containment dome over the cut riser — could temporarily result in as much as 20 percent more oil flowing into the water during the three days to a week before the new device could be in place.

“This is obviously a difficult situation,” Ms. Browner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “but it’s important for people to understand that from the beginning, the government has been in charge.”

Huh?  At first the Obamans said that BP was in charge.  And why would they now want to claim to be in charge of a series of failures?  I guess they left their thinking caps in the closet.

“We have been directing BP to take important steps,” including the drilling of a second relief well, she added.

COMMENT:  Carol Browner is the resident socialist in the Cabinet.  She knows from drills like she knows from economics.

May 30, 2010