on the beach

As Americans turn angrily on Barack Obama over his handling of the oilspill (see grow up and pointing the finger) both the New Yorker and The Economist invoke the figure of King Canute. The New Yorker's Bob Madoff has a cartoon of a king on his throne at the beach with oil lapping round his feet.

The Economist has a leader that reminds readers (at last) that the 11th century Danish King was proving to his courtiers that he was not omnipotent.