“In case anybody wonders, in any of your reporting, in case you were wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility,” said the president in his concluding remarks. But it’s responsibility with an asterisk: BP is the only entity that can solve this problem, which is like none anyone has seen before. The government can stare harder over the oil company’s shoulder—order a second relief well to be drilled, tell it what kind of chemicals to use—but overall the relationship is not unlike that between a frustrated user and his computer. The federal government is stuck on the phone, and BP is tech support.

Having responsibility without control is always a horrible situation, no matter what job you hold. But Obama and his aides know it is a special gift of the presidency. The dynamic is part of what keeps the “This is Obama’s Katrina” story line alive, and the sense of confusion that dogged the Bush administration after Katrina was only heightened at the press conference when Obama said he didn’t know whether the director of the Minerals Management Service had been fired or had resigned.