People seem surprised that no leviathan Dutch boy has magically appeared to plug his cork-like finger into the torrential oil leak currently greasing-up the Gulf of Mexico.
Some commentators are even calling this viscous catastrophe a mere “spill,” as if British Petroleum had accidentally knocked a cup of hot tea over Louisiana’s lap, rather than incontinently urinating their horrible product into the state’s helpless face, as seems to be the case. “Why don’t they hurry up and do something?” is a common response to the ongoing and so far unfixable crisis. Apparently we believe there is no man-made problem that cannot be fixed by the indefatigable efforts of previously anonymous federal agencies armed with sacks of cash.
No matter how much we criticize our government and their industrial allies, most of us expect it to do the right thing in the end and save the day,
like one of those drunk sheriffs in old westerns who finally pull themselves together, shave, and stride purposefully out of the saloon to deal with Dodge’s bandito nemesis.
Of course, that only happens in the movies, but then this is America.