What should Obama say?

The president is planning a speech to the nation Tuesday night about the BP oil spill. He’s been taking a lot of criticism about his handling of this disaster, even from fellow Democrats. What would you like him to say?

He will most likely speak of forcing British Petroleum to set up an escrow account of about $20 billion to pay the claims of people who have been directly affected by the spill. The payouts would be administered by an independent agency. BP has been slow to pay these claims, and officials remember how Exxon dragged its feet for years in paying claims arising from the Valdez disaster.
There are, however, questions as to whether Congress can legally force BP to do such a thing. (Read about it here.)
A larger question is whether the government could force BP to pay the lost wages of all oil workers who are idle because of the administration’s new moratorium on deep-water offshore drilling. This blogger thinks that’s a bad idea, and I agree. The moratorium is Obama’s idea. It’s not a direct result of leaking oil making it impossible to make a living.
Obama clearly is intent on making BP pay for this mess. Government regulators, of course, didn’t do their jobs, which might have kept the disaster from happening. But BP still had a responsibility to make sure it was doing things right, so I’m OK with forcing them to pay.
But what Americans really want to hear right now is that the leak itself has been stopped. Above all else, some specific, definite words on that subject would be most welcome on Tuesday.