I, for one, wish it were possible to force Roger Kimball and Rep. Joe Barton to spend their summer vacation living on Grand Isle, in one of the empty camps that cannot be used because the beaches and the waters are full of BP’s oil. The image below, from Susan Poag of the Times Picayune, is of a dead fish in Barataria Bay, on the back side of Grand Isle. I used to fish there as a child. You can’t fish there now. God knows when anybody will be able to again.

One is not obliged to support the president’s handling of this crisis, but good grief, the statements by Barton and Kimball exemplify pluperfect jackassery. It is gobsmackingly insulting, especially to the people who are directly suffering from BP’s recklessness — people that include folks known to me and to my family here in south Louisiana. Their livelihoods, and indeed their lives, and the land and water they love, are very nearly destroyed. Beyond that, I’ll say nothing about Messrs Kimball and Barton, and their allies. This is no longer a political blog, and besides, what I have to say about this matter is not fit for polite company, nor, frankly, for most impolite company.