On President Obama playing golf and Tony Hayward watching a yacht race as oil continues to leak in the Gulf of Mexico:

These images only have an effect if they reinforce a previous stereotype. And for Hayward, unfortunately, it enforced the stereotype of [the] upper-crusty Englishman who says ’I want to get my life back’ when people are suffering.
He might have chosen a cricket match or something, but he chose something on the water with these boats that are out there for sport – on clean water, whereas his company is polluting a gulf where the shrimpers and the fishermen are out there for a living which they can’t pursue.
That is the reason that that image strikes people as, If not offensive, a little bit rich . . .
It’s like the John Kerry event: He had this image, as the sort of, pseudo-aristocratic, snooty guy who marries rich women and lives off their money. He tries to fight that [image], and then all of a sudden, you see him in that famous windsurfing image where he’s wearing the tightest and the most expensive gear. And people in Kansas say: Who is this guy?
Like Dukakis in the tank, if the image plays into the pre-existing stereotype, then you really get hurt.

On whether Kenneth Feinberg’s appointment is good news for BP:

Yeah, I think so. But I just love hearing him. He sounds like he’s a professor of elocution — in a Boston accent. It’s a great combination.

On Jon Kyl’s statement that Obama told him he won’t go ahead and secure the border because it will remove an incentive to vote for immigration reform, which was denied by the White House:

There’s no way we’re ever going to adjudicate what actually happened; there were only two people in the room. It looks as if neither is giving quarter on this. They’re all insisting on the truth of their position.
The underlying argument that the Obama administration, like the left of the Democratic party, is holding out on enforcement as a chip with which it will purchase amnesty is true. There’s no doubt. The whole idea of “comprehensive” [immigration reform] is a way of saying: Unless you give us what we want – essentially amnesty or a “path to citizenship” — we‘re going to hold back on enforcement …
And it is a scandal. Because it‘s a duty of the federal government, whatever it wants. It has to execute the laws. Illegal immigration is illegal. It has to be enforced. It’s a federal responsibility. And not doing it as a way to achieve some kind of legislative agenda is a dereliction of duty at the least.
Kyl is a straight shooter. I believe him implicitly. On the other hand, Obama is a very smart man and I don’t know that he would actually explicitly say that, because it really is cheap and tawdry. So I suspect maybe something in between happened where there was a statement about ‘if you guys give us X we’ll give you Y,’ which the two men could interpret differently, and that’s what I suspect may actually have happened.