"Playing word games to relieve the misery"

By Wesley Pruden

"Now for something entirely different: BP's gusher in the Gulf seems to be capped, with nothing but tiny oil "seeps" to foul the waters, and we can start building the gallows at last. A public hanging has always been good clean fun (unless you're the hangee). A waltz at the end of a rope can be a favorite public entertainment again.

There's no shortage of invitees to the dance. British Petroleum, or BP as British Petroleum prefers to be called, can furnish an entire cast of hangees. So can the federal government, whose bureaucrats long ago perfected the art of bungling. Even the White House, where Barack Obama fiddled with his teleprompter and his putter for 70 days before he allowed more than a few oil skimmers into the Gulf, has an abundant array of criminal incompetents. The president kept the skimmers out of the Gulf at the behest of the maritime unions, but he did shed some presidential tears for the pelicans."