Then there's the administration's rhetoric about anticipating the magnitude of the crisis and bringing all resources to bear on Day One.
"We had (Defense Department) resources there from Day One. This was a situation that was treated as a possible catastrophic failure from, from Day One," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
That sense of urgency was not so apparent when White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was questioned about the incident April 23, three days after it occurred. At the time he seemed to dismiss its severity and indicated it wouldn't affect Obama's plans to open up new areas of the coast to offshore drilling.
"I don't honestly think it opens up a whole new series of questions, because, you know, in all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last," Gibbs said.
A week later, Obama was announcing plans for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to review whether new technologies were needed to safeguard against oil spills from deep-water drilling rigs. The president said no new offshore oil drilling leases would be issued without any such safeguards.
And Napolitano's comments over the weekend about the Pentagon's Day One role seemed a change from last Thursday, when she seemed to indicate the Defense Department was not yet involved in responding to the spill: "If and when they have something to add, we'll certainly make that known," she said.
The "Obama's Katrina" meme continues to grow.
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