In truth, the organization most likely to have the phone numbers of the “experts” is BP. The organization that will get them to Louisiana fastest is BP. I am writing this not because I like, admire or even have an opinion about the company formerly known as British Petroleum but because BP’s shareholders have already lost billions of dollars and BP’s executives are motivated to find solutions faster than anyone in the White House ever could. Bashing BP or seeking to punish BP is pointless. This is not only because we will soon learn that many companies — American, Japanese, even Halliburton — were responsible for that rig but also because whatever the solution, BP has to be part of it.

Paradoxically, “talking tough” about this oil crisis also makes both Obama and America look weak internationally — just as “talking tough” about Iran made the Bush administration look weak. Harsh rhetoric is fine if it reflects a real will to do something, a real plan of action and the existence of a Plan B, for when the first one fails. But when angry words — anti-BP, anti-British, anti-oil company — reflect the absence of any alternative policy whatsoever, they sound pathetic. It’s right for Obama to be concerned about the consequences of this disaster, but wrong — and dangerous — for him to pretend he is capable of controlling it. We should stop calling on him to do so.