It’s now Day 72 of the Gulf crisis, and America still waits for its President to act as though he’s in charge of the emergency response. It hasn’t been pretty. On Tuesday, Barack Obama managed to make it to Day 4, when he finally got around to accepting help from foreign countries. After that, he finally managed to get to Day 58, as Jim Geraghty notices:

The oil has been spilling for 71 days; Joe Barton made his comment about apologizing to BP thirteen days ago.

Obama’s remarks, scheduled for later today:

“The top Republican on the energy committee even had the nerve to apologize to BP for the fact that we made them set up this fund. Apologize to BP! He actually called the fund ‘a tragedy.’ A tragedy? A tragedy is what the people of the Gulf are going through right now. That’s the tragedy. And our government has a responsibility to hold the corporations accountable that caused it.”

The lesson?

To reiterate a point made in the Corner, this is an administration so focused on ensuring no crisis goes to waste that they never seem to find the time to actually solve the crisis.

How much longer do we have to wait for our Chief Executive to finally catch up to the actual crisis? Or will he continue to make Joe Barton his highest priority as President?

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!