With oil spill, White House struggles to assert control of the unknown

By Karen Tumulty and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 6, 2010

In a time of crisis, no resource is so precious, or so perishable, as credibility. Last weekend, the Obama White House discovered that it had sprung another leak.

At a public briefing on May 29, BP's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, described the company's latest last-ditch maneuver to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil spill: hacking the gushing pipe at the bottom of the gulf, so that a cap could be installed over it. Twice, Suttles said that shearing the riser would have little effect on the size of the leak.

White House officials could not believe what they were hearing. The administration's own analysis suggested the opposite, that cutting the riser could increase the flow of oil by 20 percent, at least temporarily.

For weeks, federal officials had stood alongside BP executives at the briefings, reinforcing doubts about who was really in charge and putting the government in the position of vouching, by its mere presence, for BP's veracity. No longer. The White House informed BP that it was putting an end to the joint appearances.

(More here.)