W.H. takes heat over spill response

Billy Nungesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish on the Louisiana Gulf Coast, has a blunt message for Barack Obama: Cut out the middleman, Mr. President.

"There's been a failure of leadership on all levels. Who in the hell is in charge?" said Nungesser, who is prodding the administration to back a controversial plan to build sand barriers to block the oil.

“I’m a big Republican, but the president spent two hours with me and really impressed me. ... He really seems to care, but I don’t think he’s getting good advice,” he told POLITICO. “I don’t think they’re telling him the truth about what’s going on around here. He needs to get more personally involved.”

Until this week, the Obama administration had largely managed to deflect responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster onto others — vowing to keep a “boot on the throat” of BP, while slamming lax oversight on the part of federal regulators during the Bush administration.

But now, with crude lapping into the bayou, even Obama’s defenders have turned critical. A White House that prides itself on operational competence and message discipline has been frustrated by an environmental catastrophe it can’t predict, can’t control and can’t out-message — and the strain is showing.

A majority of Americans, by 51 percent to 46 percent, now disapprove of Obama’s handling of the crisis, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll. An Associated Press-GfK survey taken less than two weeks ago showed that only one-third of those polled gave Obama low marks for his response.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs surprised reporters at the daily briefing Monday by announcing the president would answer questions about the spill in person Thursday — the first presidential news conference Obama has given in months.

Earlier, Louisiana officials, as they watch helplessly while oil fouls fragile marshland, destroying plants and killing birds and fish, also stepped up their calls on the Obama administration to push aside BP and take charge of the cleanup.

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