When these things happen, someone always comes out and says "If only we had this one more safety measure, everything would have been averted". It reminds me of the Futurama episode where the 6000 hulled dark matter tanker wrecks and Fry remarks "Oh, the fools! If only they'd built it with 6000 and one hulls! When will they learn?!?"

What happens in most instances, and I suspect we'll find here is that safety personnel get complacent and cut corners to meet a deadline or some such. If so, such people should be held criminally responsible, while BP is itself financially responsible.

On the political front, I think Obama's only mistake has been in mishandling the PR during the spill. He certainly didn't cause the spill, and probably only BP could stop it. The only missteps have been in the administration's inconsistent and sometimes conflicting statements about the spill and their role in the aftermath- beginning with their curious "boot on BP's neck" statement.