Black Kettles and Ebony Pots

There is no doubt the situation in the Gulf of Mexico is deplorable. Awful. Terrible. Disastrous.

And BP screwed up. Monumentally.

But....

These congressional dog and pony shows make me want to throw up. Documentaries often seem to like talking about how back in the day, hundreds of people would show up for a public hanging. It was great entertainment. Of course, today we don't do that because we are so much more sensitive and civilized than our primitive ancestors of 120 years ago.

Instead we pay actors to pretend to be violent.

And we watch our elected officials publicly and loudly flog the nearest dog they can put their hands on. Millions gather via the glowing screen to see the officials strut and pontificate -- as if they had nothing to do with it.

Here's the problem. BP screwed up, but the oil is on our hands. They were just the delivery boys.

We need to stop being so self-righteous about where our petroleum comes from.