Nigeria Content Online

This was bound to
be a difficult time for the company long known as British Petroleum. An
explosion at an oil well near the southern U.S. coast has set-off the
worst spill in American history. Even after nearly two months it’s
still not plugged.

President Barack
Obama pumped up the pressure on BP this week. He made his fourth visit
to the disaster zone, spoke about it in the first televised address
he’s ever made from the enormously symbolic setting of the Oval Office
and summoned BP executives to meet face-to-face.

Obama has blamed
the company at every opportunity and used this week’s White House
meeting to convince it to create a 20-billion-dollar fund to cover the
environmental and economic cost.

But BP executives seem adept at making things worse on their own.

BP Chief Executive
Tony Hayward first described the spill as ‘tiny’ and then ‘very, very
modest.’ He complained that he wanted his life back, apparently
forgetting that 11 rig workers lost their lives in the explosion that
set-off the spill.

His boss hardly
helped. After the meeting with Obama this week, BP Chairman Carl-Henric
Svanberg apologized and said his company wouldn’t ignore the people
affected by the spill’s impact on fishing, tourism or way of life.

“We care about the
small people,” he said. That unfortunate turn of phrase seemed like a
patronizing description of the very people already punished by BP’s
mishap. The chairman later apologized for that too.

The politics have been bad for President Obama as well.

A USA Today/Gallup poll found that 71 percent of Americans say the president hasn’t been tough enough on BP.

His administration is being blamed for what local residents describe as a slow and disorganized response to the catastrophe.

BP and the Obama
administration have been unintentionally paired-up in an awkward
partnership. Both are suffering the effects of the spill. Neither has
been able to end it.

There is just too much oil and a lot of Bad Politics.