I'm going to focus my comments on Meet the Press today. Lately, I haven't been all that impressed by MTP, but today's program was such a microcosm of the politics and reality of the Gulf oil leak that I actually thought it was a great program and want to comment on it.

The interesting part of the discussion came from three politicians - Mississippi Gov. and possible presidential candidate Hailey Barbour. He was former chair of the republican party and I always considered him to be a hard core republican who will use slash and burn political tactics whenever he needs to do so. U.S. Senator Mary Landreau, conservative democrat from Louisiana, and Congressman Ed Markey from Massachusetts, one of the most liberal members of the house.

One might expect Barbour to take on Obama and Landreau, but he didn't. Instead, he handled questions about Obama's performance thus far in regard to the oil spill with kid gloves. So much so that it was obvious that he was doing it. He even said that he didn't think for the republicans to go after Obama was such a great strategy. But, he did set the standard which is hard to argue with as to what will ultimately determine whether or not Obama has done a good job - (1) whether the leak gets stopped, (2) whether the Gulf gets cleaned up, and (3) whether the bills get paid.

What are the odds that all that is going to get done expeditiously and efficiently with few problems? Hah! So Barbour is playing the odds with that one. But he also praised Obama on some of his efforts. I think that is because he and Landreau, amazingly enough, are pushing hard for Obama to lift the "moratorium" on new deep water drilling rigs. Geez, isn't that like the minimum that Obama should do? And there has been no information set forth about why this happened and what can be done in the future.

Considering that Landreau admitted that it could be 5 years or more before there is any substantial commercial fishing in that part of the Gulf, the severity of the consequences of just one blown out well ought to be enough for the politicians from that region to be overly cautious. But noooooo....both Barbour and Landreau were emphatic that the moratorium should be lifted. In fact, Barbour went so far as to say that the impacts of the moratorium were worse than the impacts of the spill. And Gregory didn't even question him on that. Now that is weird.

I say that because isn't it true that Obama's moratorium was only on new wells in deep water, and doesn't affect already pumping facilities? In fact, didn't it come out in the news that even after the moratorium was announced, that a number of new wells were approved in deep water? So if the existing wells are allowed to keep pumping, and a few new wells were approved during a transition, then just how many wells were planned in deep water in this last month that haven't been permitted that is having such a devastating impact on the economy? I think it's a bunch of BS.

But there is no doubt that Barbour, while being very careful to avoid the mistep of Rep. Barton, who called for an apology to BP for making them pay for their damage. He definitely wasn't that aggressive in his support of BP, but no doubt he was slanting his remarks to reflect a hope that the government wouldn't come down too hard on BP, and that BP would be given a chance to continue as a company. As I previously wrote, that kind of position is wraught with political risks for the republicans.

Congressman Markey spoke eloquently about the connection between this and the need for us to move quickly toward alternative energy systems. On the other hand, for example, Landreau touted natural gas, or, as we have come to know it, the "Pickens plan." It's a costly "interim" plan that puts solar and wind second to natural gas systems. It's being pushed by billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who probably owns a bunch of natural gas he wants to sell. To hear Landreau push it on MTP was weird.

It is a difficult position for the republicans to be in when they can't just out and out support their favorite corporate buddies. And, it's a difficult position for the democrats to be in when they have to worry about going too far in taking on a corporate villan. But, in such a case like this, where the environmental damage is unfathomable, and the costs for true retribution unpayable, one would think that all of the so called leaders would be totally cautious in putting themselves and us in the position where this could happen again, and believe me it could. But no....even in the face of this it is obvious that the big oil companies still have a lot of these politicians in their pockets. That doesn't bode well for the "small people," as the BP chairman of the board referred to them, ever getting what is truly coming to them in losses.