President Obama: “Furious”; BP continues to clamp down (and buy up) on media coverage.

BP buys google search terms for “oil spill,” “gulf disaster,” etc .

Search “oil spill,” “gulf disaster,” etc…you’ll find BP’s site ranked number one. Why? They’re paying upward of $10K/day to Google. But that’s not all! They’re all over the airwaves, with commercials greenwashing their blackened brand.

All this, while good ol’fashioned media coverage of the Oil Spill is more restricted than that of, say, the Iraq War. Why? Because a private business is in charge.

Via James Cameron, of all people, a salient point:

“Sure, thev’ve got lot of cameras down there, but do we want BP choosing where they’re pointed? It’s easy to coordinate multiple cameras on the seabed. It’s nothing more dire than combat. Reporters and the media are allowed in combat situations. Why not when a foreign corporation working in the U.S. economic zone has created the biggest hit to the environment ever and a huge hit to the economy of the southern states?”

President Barack Obama:

“My understanding is that BP has contracted for $50 million worth of TV advertising to manage their image during the course of this disaster.

In addition, there are reports that BP will be paying $10.5 billion – that’s billion, with a B – in dividend payments this quarter.

Now I don’t have a problem with BP fulfilling its legal obligations, but I want BP to be very clear they’ve got moral and legal obligations here in the Gulf for the damage that has been done. And what I don’t want to hear is, when they’re spending that kind of money on their shareholders, and spending that kind of money on TV advertising, that they’re nickel-and-diming fisherman or small businesses here in the Gulf who are having a hard time.”

“They say they want to make it right – that’s part of their advertising campaign – well we want them to make it right.”

“The fact that BP could pay a $10.5 billion dividend payment is indicative of how much money these folks have been making. Given the fact that they didn’t fully account for the risks, I don’t want somebody else bearing the costs of those risks that they took.”

Click below for NY Times’ must-see new photo slideshow, showing the first images that’ve surfaced, nearly 7 weeks after the spill (they were taken by a photographer on a tour with Gov. Jindal):

While it’s become popular to say it’s not BP’s fault, but our own—and while I halfway agree—I also vehemently disagree.

Why? Because basic safeties were not put in place, or kept in place by BP.

Back to President Obama:

“We discovered that companies like BP, who had provided assurances that they had failsafe, back-up, redundant systems, in fact not only didn’t have failsafe systems but had no idea what to do when those failsafe systems broke down.”

Bonus, Rachel Maddow:

A BP ad:

Via Jimmy Kimmel, a spoof:

Via Second City, another Spoof: “Brown. It’s the new Green.”