the ass kicking comment is obviously a cheap, pre-meditated political kabuki theater meant for public consumption. It's pretty dumb.
That said, what exactly is the deal with the "sudden" conservative obsession with this BP disaster? Where were you dudes a month ago? I was one of the first ones out of the gate saying that this had the looks of a major and catastrophic clusterfuck. And for at least a month, most conservatives either ignored this, or they pontificated that horrors of natural seepage was just as bad as the BP disaster.... or that lefties were exaggarating the scope of this f*ck up.
I don't know what it takes to solve this oil blow out. BP should have known, it was their responsibility. And as far as Obama goes, he's smarter than me and has the full authority of the federal government at his disposal, so I'm thinking he should be doing a hell of a lot more, although I'm not smart enough or informed enough to know exactly what he should do. I could easily yell out "more booms", but I actually have no idea, or credible information as to how many booms are needed, how effective they would be, or if there is some horrific shortage of booms. I think only Drudge-readers are in the habit of yelling out slogans without actually having knowlege or expertise in what is actually going down.
All that said, my general rule of thumb is that anyone who was missing in action for the first month of this disaster, or spent that time downplaying it, or blabbing about natural seepage can be completely ignored. Those dudes missed the boat and have no credibility to open their effing pie hole now.