If you can’t seem to make any progress in practice, though, do it in court.

Opening a new front in the battle to contain the worst oil spill in the nation’s history, the Obama administration on Tuesday began a criminal investigation into the causes and consequences of the environmental disaster plaguing the Gulf Coast.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. revealed the criminal and civil probes into the BP oil-rig disaster just hours after President Obama vowed that government investigators would conduct a “full and vigorous accounting” of the still-uncapped spill. The president also ordered the oil giant to compensate those whose livelihoods have been harmed.

“We have an obligation to investigate what went wrong and to determine what reforms are needed so that we never have to experience a crisis like this again,” Mr. Obama told reporters in the Rose Garden after a meeting with the two co-chairmen of a new government panel that will oversee the probe.

While on a tour of the area in New Orleans, Mr. Holder promised a “meticulous, comprehensive and aggressive” government probe to ensure that “the American people do not foot the bill for this disaster and that our laws are enforced to the full extent.”

“That is our responsibility, and we will do nothing less,” said Mr. Holder, revealing that a team of Justice Department lawyers from Washington had met with attorneys general and U.S. attorneys in the states and districts whose coastlines and residents have been affected by the spill. “We will not rest until justice is done.”

They will not rest until justice is done.

What a load of crud! There’s plenty of time to go after BP, they’re not going anywhere, right? So instead of trying to deflect the public’s attention from the mess in the gulf and at the same time take the public’s attention off the fact that the Obama Administration’s not doing anything of a substantial nature about it, they do a diversionary tactic.

This reminds me of the cruise missiles Bill Clinton had launched during his sexcapades hearings, in order to take the peoples’ mind of the Lewinsky situation.

It is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t allow “progressives” to run the country: Their attributes lie in campaigning and slinging rhetoric, but do not extend into running the nation once they’ve won.

Once in office, they become clueless, so they feel compelled to resort to useless symbolism as a means of mollification of the people.