The Washington Post is reporting that in the entire 77 days since oil started it's volcanic gush into the Gulf, convicted corporate monopoly felon BP has skimmed or burned only around 60 percent of the amount it said it could remove in a single day. The gap between what BP promised in its March 24 filing with federal regulators and the amount of oil recovered since the April 20 disaster has caused widespread confusion about the extent of the spill and the progress of the recovery. That confusion, of course, is exactly what BP wants. It's why the company hasn't installed a simple device on the blowout preventer pipe to measure how much oil is blowing out of the broken pipe. It's why they're pouring millions of gallons of dispersants into the oil so it will settle into lower layers of water, out of sight and out of mind, instead of floating to the surface where it can be measured and removed. They want all this becase under the clean water act they have to pay a fine of nearly $5000 per barrell of oil spilled, and if nobody knows how much has poured out into the gulf, nobody will know how much to fine them. Apparently the Obama Administration shares this concern, after the President's talk with the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, which is seeing its pension funds collapse along with BP's stock price. And, of course, the more the reality of the oil spill can be hidden - from keeping out reporters to pushing the oil underwater with dispersants - note that the Air Force is today spraying dispersants on the Gulf from the air - the less bad PR this administration will get. The less this looks like a Katrina-like disaster, the less it will politically harm President Obama. Meanwhile, BP may be getting short on cash as their debt has been downgraded by Fitch and one of the Libyan princes is apparently among many eyeing the company as a possible takeover target. Everyone, from corporate felon BP to the Obama administration seems more interested in hiding the oil and it's political and financial damage, then is doing something about it, that's is except "the little people"who live along the Gulf coast.