The language likely seemed a bit too sympathetic to BP; it certainly did to me, but if I overreacted, that was not my intent. It's a legit question if one doesn't know, but at this point about the only responsibility NOT born by BP is that the US government never said, "NO!" when they decided to develop one of the largest oil fields in the Gulf by seat of their pants. The Transocean rig had been used a number of times in other locations without incident, Halliburton told BP to put in over twenty spacers in their blueprint (rather than the nine BP actually used) and had virtually finished their part of plugging the well when a BP supervisor ordered the drilling mud intended to reduce pressure to be replaced with light seawater (over the objections of the chief driller killed in the subsequent explosion. ) So, yeah, the responsibility is split between BP for all the irresponsible things they did and the US government who didn't try to stop them. The liability is all on the part of the actor. Heck, even the dispersant chemical being used to spread rather than contain the oil is so toxic that, in BRITAIN, it's illegal.

Yeah, US investors in BP are losing money along with the rest; maybe they should talk to BPs board about that, since it's the result of their actions. Meanwhile, millions of US citizens all over the South are losing their livelihoods and homes due to those same actions. The advantage for Obama in going after BP so hard is that it might distract from the fact he could've, should've and to a great extent DID see this coming but allowed BP to roll some pretty big dice with the worlds largest gulf anyway.