Even if you're right, it's beside the point. My argument was that government holds ultimate power even against the biggest corporations.
It is true that they're not always able to wield their power, as in your BP example. That's a good thing, because it demonstrates that the government is at least constrained to operate predictable (i.e., the rule of law). If the government were able to spin anything as a righteous stand, and do whatever they thought they could get away with, then business (and indeed any freedom) would be stymied, because people could not be certain that they'd be able to go about their business -- the fear from uncertainty would inhibit all sorts of activities.
And the fact that ATT and IBM are doing well now really doesn't enter into it. The simple fact is that these were giant, powerful corporations. Yet the government still had the power to tear them apart. That simple fact demonstrates my argument; the "goodness" of the action is besides the point.
This is just absolutely not true. When US president has the guts to suggest that company(ies) responsible for largest ecological disaster in US history should pay for it, it equalled to "shake-down" to people currently running US legislative branch, then what are we even arguing about? ATT, IBM and MSFT were decimated? Seriously? They were broken-up, as they were approaching monopoly (that's a good thing you know), but all three examples and their spin-offs are thriving since then.
One thing you got right though - start-up world is risky.