Live From Louisiana For Coverage Of The BP Oil Spill And President Obama's Visit

Update 5/30/10: I've been notified that a Facebook page has been created in the hopes of getting someone from BP to go on 360. Couldn't hurt, right? If you've got your Angry Face on over this situation...join! The Internets are coming for you, BP!

Hi everyone. The bullet points were actually not expecting to be here because they thought they had plans. Que sera, sera. Consider this a bonus as you jump into your holiday weekend:

• Tonight Anderson Cooper again used the phrase "B.S.," though there was no unintentionally comical apology this time. Apparently he is no longer concerned about our innocent ears. Again, think of the children!

• So, BP might have bussed in extra workers to make things seem extra progress-y for President Obama. Raise your hand if this allegation shocks you. Yeah, that's what I thought. Can these people be in jail now please?

• BP is still giving the Silver Fox the slip. Our anchor had them in his grasp; even had an interview scheduled. "We were very excited," he tells us, while managing to actually not sound excited at all. Unfortunately, when the whole bussed-in-extra-workers thing broke, BP stopped returning the 360 kids calls. Funny that. This has left our anchor extra hot and bothered: "...they will be on lots of other people's programs. I'm not sure why they won't be on this one. But I would welcome them. And I won't bite them or anything. I will be nice." Anderson Cooper will refrain from going mad vampire on your ass, Tony. What more could you ask for?! (Our anchor would be a hella hot vampire. There's totally a franchise there. Just sayin'.)

• I missed most of the coverage of Obama's visit, but feel a little better after listening to Billy Nungesser. And of course I loved the part where he told Anderson that Obama had made him promise that when future problems arose, he would call the White House before contacting our anchor. Billy tries to keep talking and Anderson's like, wait, WHAT? Back that up. "He actually said that? He didn't actually say that." Our anchor's all cool and everything, but you know that deep down that made him ridiculously excited.
  

• More James Carville. More Douglas Brinkley. Both seemed to lean toward the more positive side regarding Obama's visit, though they wish he would have stayed longer and talked to locals. Fair, I guess. Although, I still think what Obama does is much more important than whether or not he looks like he cares. John Cole has another good post related to this subject. He's quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers. Funny that he started out on the other side.

• Carville on the BP fake workers accusation and whether or not it surprised him: "No, not at all. It would be very consistent with BP's behavior. They lie about everything and they fake everything, so I'm not surprised at all." Pretty much.

• Much of what I don't like about Carville--all punditry, really--is the inauthenticity. They're performers--some more than others. They're spinning for their side, while at the same time trying to make a name for themselves. I find the majority of it disgusting. However, I bring this up because this situation is different. There's nothing inauthentic in what he's saying now. I will give him that.

• But this from Carville had me rolling my eyes: "We don't like their beltways and Applebee's and, you know, the food they eat, anything like that, you know. We're different people here in South Louisiana." You don't like "their" beltways? Dude, you ARE beltway. And if the situation were different, I'm betting Anderson would have called you on it...just like he did last time (word "dude" included!)

• Anderson's piece with the oyster fishermen was good. I can't believe he ate one (an oyster, not a fisherman).

• I liked the segment with Rob Marciano, David Mattingly, and Carol Costello. A good way to get a sum-up of several different reporting perspectives.
  

• Anderson on BP: "They have so many PR people, so many lobbyists. It's not as if they're, like, country bumpkins who've never seen a TV camera before." There goes the country bumpkin demographic.

• David on BP: "I really don't know how they see us, but I certainly know how everybody sees them." And more Anderson for good measure: "I think I know how they see this program, at least, because we haven't seen much of them." This is just eating at him, isn't it?

• The oil plumes Rob talked about are kinda freaking me out. Rachel Maddow has been covering them and she just makes them sound scarier each night.

• Anderson: "We've been reporting this for a long time. These guys are going to continue for a long time to come, as long as the story -- frankly, when many of the other cameras leave, we'll still be following this story. That's our commitment to the Gulf." The bitchy part of me immediately thought, "but what about your commitment to Haiti?" (We never got anything from Gary Tuchman.) The part of me that's mostly nice knows they're just trying their best to cover everything, so as I opened this post, que sera, sera.

• Sorry to all you reading who didn't actually watch the broadcast. I know these bullet points didn't really explain much. I will try to work on being more service-y in the future. These shows from the gulf have been good.

• Finally, to lighten the mood a little, Anderson Cooper can we talk about your new glasses? Because you've got a whole lot of fail going on there. The Harry Potter look works for Rachel Maddow. You? Not so much. You're messing with your brand. You are he of the silver locks and eyes of blue. Now people are just like, whoa, glasses. Don't interfere with the pretty! You want something unobtrusive: wire rims, probably in silver. Silver rims for a Silver Fox. You can thank me later. (Also? All this time I thought he was squinting and furrowing because the news was just So Intense. Now it dawns on me that maybe he just couldn't see well. I guess we're all Angela Chase and we just discovered Jordan uses eye drops.)

• This bullet point contains some yummy barbeque. Have a nice Memorial Day! Don't forget to think about the troops.