Week Two Of Live Coverage From Louisiana Of The BP Oil Leak Disaster

Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed your weekend because things are about to get oily and depressing up in here. The 360 kids are once again coming at us from what could arguably be called ground zero of the worst environmental disaster of our lifetime. Still the oil spills; still the oil spreads--now showing up in Alabama. If there is one bright spot, it is the bullet points. They are here, and they are awesome. Enjoy:

• Gary Tuchman's piece was pretty mind-boggling. Is this really where we're at right now? Cleaning blades of grass? I feel bad for the workers. They're no doubt some of the same people whose livelihoods are being threatened by BP. Now they're forced to work for them, performing back-breaking jobs, all the while not allowed to say a peep. Talk about demoralizing.
  

• You can see a video of Gary talking about his day here and check him out on Twitter as well. Also, would you like to follow his awesome producer Joneil Adriano? Of course you would. And as long as you're following people, you may as well follow producer Ismael Estrada who wrote this blog post. You will enjoy their tweets, I promise. They probably can't compete with the bullet points, but what can really?
  

• Can we talk about what a giant douchebag this Tony Hayward guy is? Poor Mr. CEO wants his life back. Gee Tony, I'm really sorry if our destroyed lives and decimated environment are putting a crimp in your caviar dreams. Allow me to play you a sad song on my teeny tiny violin. Is there anything this guy can do right? We already know he's not so hot with stopping flowing oil. And apparently when it comes to being PR savvy, well, not so much. Worst. CEO. Ever. You know what this bullet point needs? A parody about BP to the tune of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Oh yes, it exists.

• I'm guessing the 360 kids had Anderson Cooper's live shot set up near train tracks. When I initially heard the dinging, I was merely bemused--live television has its quirks. But it kept going on and on. By about mid show I wanted to kill that damn sound. I wanted to kill it with fire.

• Billy Nungesser is like the Energizer Bunny. Do his batteries ever run out? I'm glad he returned to that Coast Guard meeting after walking out.
  

• Billy: "A lot of people say, a lot smarter people than me, that they don't want us to know exactly how much oil is coming out of that hole." To which our anchor replied: "Well, you know, that's not crazy talk, because, frankly, for the first month we all know NOAA came up with the 5,000 barrel figure. BP was still saying it was 1,000 barrels back then." No, that is certainly not crazy talk. I'm glad everyone has finally pretty much ended up at the place where I began, which is to hold the belief that BP is lying. Where we go from here, I couldn't tell you. Also, the whole number of barrels issue is so one of Anderson's things. You could practically see him be like, "Don't even get me started on that."
  

• BP continues to freeze out our anchor, and given that he actually started laughing when he tonight once again invited them on the show, I'm thinking he knows there's not going to be thawing anytime soon. But if you want to help put the pressure on, you can join this Facebook page dedicated to getting an official on the broadcast. C'mon Tony, are you really afraid of a little Silver Fox?

• Ed Henry's piece was 90 percent good, but I have had it up to here with the stupid "why won't Obama show his rage?" narrative. I'm sorry, did I miss the memo that said that the president's anger will stop the oil from flowing? Why are you denying us your magical rage, Obama?! Look, he has an even temper--that's just who he is. And for the life of me I don't understand why we're not all ridiculously excited about this. Do you people remember the last guy? Hell, there were times when I worried that he would become bored, get hopped up on Red Bull, and accidentally nuke Estonia. Now we have a guy who's all calm and reasonable, and the press is like "well yeah, but wouldn't you feel better if he raised the volume of his voice?" No! No, I would not feel better! I will feel better when the oil stops flowing. Ahh!!! *deep breath* To be clear, I didn't witness Ed personally push this narrative to Gibbs. But I did see some other guy (don't know his name) do so when I caught a few minutes of the gaggle today. Times like that I just want to march in there and knock all their heads together. Too violent?

• Now that I think about it, one thing Bush got right is that history will judge him in the end. Oh, I don't think it's going to judge him--is judging him--in quite the way he anticipated, but the concept stands. Katrina was such a failure for Bush, not specifically because he appeared inept (think flyover picture); he was inept. In the weeks and months following the disaster we learned through insiders and video that he was totally asleep at the wheel. Those are revelations that take time to come out. Seeing Obama talk basketball with Marv Albert doesn't exactly make me feel good, but then again, what, do we expect him to be out there cleaning blades of grass? As long as he has a handle on things behind-the-scenes, I'm relatively happy. And that's not something anyone can have a full picture of right now. Of course, that's not to say the press should wait to hold him to account. That would be crazy.

• I am crossing my fingers and toes that Eric Holder will be able to successfully prosecute BP; however, I am not holding my breath. I agree with Douglas Brinkley, it's time for Tony to go. Too bad we've been rocking a fail-up culture for at least a decade.
  

• I was glad to see the Ben Wedeman piece. I'm not completely up on the flotilla assault story, though it's sounding like Israel was ridiculously out of line. Can you imagine the aneurysm the Right in this country would have if Iran did something like that?

• I'm interested to see Spike Lee's new documentary. I own ""When the Levees Broke," which is a must-see if you haven't already. It took me a month to get through due to rage and sadness. I only allowed myself to watch one act a week. Since that time I've occasionally thought about watching it again, but never have because it still makes me so so angry.
  

• Yay for the investigative piece from Joe Johns.

• You guys been checking out the ratings lately? Our little show hasn't been doing too bad. Oh, sure, they're still getting stomped by Fox News, but check out Friday--that's a solid second. I'm glad. The shows have been good. They deserve it.
  

• Finally, this bullet point contains a comic strip that hilariously mocks our press, is on topic, and manages to make you picture James Carville riding a burning alligator. No, really!