What can Obama do?

The bad news came over the beginning to a three-day weekend at a daily briefing by the U.S. Coast Guard and BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles.
Coast Guard Admiral Mary Landry said the failure was very disappointing and that the best option for ending the spill was the current drilling of a relief well which BP estimates will be finished by late July or early August.
Local residents angered by the string of failures and insufficient clean-up over nearly six weeks felt the same way.
"I knew it wasn't going to work," said Joey Toups, 53, a Louisiana shrimper idled by the spill and a former oil worker.
"I've worked in oil fields before. The only solution is that other drilling rig sitting out there. They need to get the relief well drilled."
BP's already tarnished reputation and its bottom line are likely to suffer further, as is the share price when markets re-open on Tuesday.
BP has thus far spent $940 million to try to plug the leak and clean up the sea and soiled coast.
The disaster has wiped out a quarter of its market value, or $50 billion, and its London-traded shares lost 5 percent on Friday alone as delays in the top kill made investors sell.
Top kill involved pumping heavy fluids known as drilling mud and other material into the well shaft to stifle the flow, then seal it with cement. Hayward said BP pumped 30,000 barrels of mud at high pressure before giving up.
Although the Obama administration has put the blame squarely on BP, polls show Americans are losing faith in the government's ability to mitigate the disaster.
In his second visit to the Gulf in the 40-day crisis on Friday, Obama faced criticism that he responded too slowly. He told people in Louisiana that they "will not be left behind" and that the "buck stops" with him.
There is not much Obama can do other than apply pressure to BP to get it right and put his best scientists in the room. The government has no deep-sea oil technology of its own.