Originally Posted by MS Fowler

If you passed a law that required you to keep some emergency equipment on hand, and failed to follow your own law, what would you say?
Much like the ACOE not properly designing or building the dikes for New Orleans, the feds messed up here, too.
By all means hold BP, and the drilling company responsible. But do not let the government off, if they indeed failed to do what they were required to do. Its time to stop judging government on "intentions" rather than results.