You can't dump that much crude into the Gulf

And somehow expect all of it to float. Toxic dispersants will break up the oil that floats, but the ocean itself is holding all the rest of it. It doesn't dilute and disappear. There are no good choices.

Oil will choke the life out of the ocean floor, kill the fish and the microorganisms they feed on, strangle the birds who feed upon the water. The beaches will reek and be unusable.

Fixing the pipe is one thing. Getting ready to deal with the decades... DECADES... of clean up is another. People who can look at the video feed of the broken pipe and refuse to recognize these facts are in denial.

Update: Bob Herbert

President Obama knows that. He knows — or should know — that the biggest, most powerful companies do not have the best interests of the American people in mind when they are closing in on the kinds of profits that ancient kingdoms could only envy. BP’s profits are counted in the billions annually. They are like stacks and stacks of gold glittering beneath a brilliant sun. You don’t want to know what people will do for that kind of money.

There is nothing new to us about this. Haven’t we just seen how the giant financial firms almost destroyed the American economy? Wasn’t it just a few weeks before this hideous Deepwater Horizon disaster that a devastating mine explosion in West Virginia — at a mine run by a company with its own hideous safety record — killed 29 coal miners and ripped the heart out of yet another hard-working local community?

The idea of relying on the assurances of these corporate predators that they are looking out for the safety of their workers and the health of surrounding communities and the environment is beyond absurd. Even after the blowout at the Deepwater Horizon site, BP officials were telling us (as their noses grew longer and longer) that about only 1,000 barrels of oil a day were escaping into the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly a month into the disaster, BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, was publicly offering the comforting assessment that the environmental damage resulting from the spill would likely be “very, very modest.”

What corporations are all about: Show not substance: Louisiana official: BP bused in 400 temporary workers for Obama’s Gulf Coast visit.

And a very good site for the latest news: The Oil Drum