The Manhattan Institute's Nicole Gelinas, writing on the City Journal Web site, makes a good point:
In announcing that BP will gradually fund a $20 billion escrow fund for Gulf oil-gusher victims, President Obama said something odd: "BP is a strong and viable company and it is in all our interests that it remains so."
The president has no particular insight on whether BP, a private company, is "strong and viable."..In fact, if it turns out BP can't regain the sustained confidence of investors, it's very much in our national interest that markets render that verdict uncontaminated by government interference that goes beyond time-tested legal channels, whether it's to defend BP or to bully it.
Mr. Obama has the unfortunate habit of saying this sort of thing about private companies -- remember Aetna? It'll be interesting to see if any investors who buy stock in BP based on the president's assurance that it is a "strong and viable company" turn around and sue the president if his assessment turns out to be wrong. There certainly have been shareholder suits filed on flimsier bases.
