In a new attack ad, Illinois GOP Senate candidate Mark Kirk smears Giannoulias with a British Petroleum link. 2009 Pultizer Prize winner PolitiFact.com says it's "barely true." I believe it's more of an unfair smear. It's no surprise that Giannoulias's advisors have corporate connections. But Giannoulias refuses contributions from corporate PACs and federal lobbyists. Does Kirk? No, he depends on them. According to PolitiFact:

The aide in question here is Endy Zemenides, a Chicago attorney who is an unpaid senior advisor to the Giannoulias campaign.

Online records of lobbyists filed with the City of Chicago Board of Ethics show Zemenides and his then-law firm Acosta, Kruse, Raines and Zemenides (and later Acosta, Kruse and Zemenides) registered as lobbyists for BP Bovis Global Alliance from 2003 to 2007.

Giannoulias spokesman Matt McGrath called the ad's claim "a real misrepresentation and distortion of facts." Zemenides was a real estate attorney for BP Bovis Global Alliance, a partnership between BP and Bovis to develop the retail, gas station side of the business, McGrath said. Zemenides helped the company on landscaping and zoning issues as the company converted a number of Amoco stations to BPs in the Chicago area. Zemenides was never a lobbyist for BP, McGrath said. It's simply the policy of the City of Chicago that real estate attorneys handling zoning cases register as lobbyists.

"This is not exactly the guys drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico," McGrath said. "This group is not involved in refining or oil exploration. This is strictly to do with retail enterprises. It's guilt by association. He worked for a subsidiary involved in retail gas stations."

Regarding the BP oil spill, I believe it's more the result of Republicans' pro-corporation, anti-regulation, anti-environment policies of the past few decades than anything else. In the Senate, Kirk will simply support the Republicans' strategy of obstructionism and constant use of the filibuster.