The Obama administration had the opportunity to prepare for an offshore drilling calamity, but by failing to do so, it must take the lion's share of the blame for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico becoming a catastrophe.

While there may not be many viable options to stop oil from spilling into the Gulf, there are obvious actions that can be taken to improve cleanup efforts, but the Obama administration is resisting these remedies.

In the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration has failed to take charge of coordinating the long-term clean-up and restoration effort.

President Obama's proposal to reinstate taxes for the Superfund, the federal program that finances the cleanup of toxic sites but has almost nothing to do with the oil spill, emphasizes that the more the Obama administration attends to not letting a crisis go to waste, the worse the crisis gets.

BP and the Minerals Management Service share responsibility for the Gulf oil spill, and while BP should ultimately pay for the damages, action must also be taken by the U.S. government to reform the leasing process for offshore areas.

While the Obama admistration's response to the Gulf spill has been plagued by federal failures, Obama has been given a free ride from the media, a stark contrast to its treatment of George W. Bush in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The hysteria of the media and the political class over the Deepwater spill could have second-order environmental impacts that could be cumulatively worse than the spill itself, both for the Gulf and for other environmental arenas.

President Obama's response to the Gulf oil spill is an unflattering example of ineffective thuggery, as he orders around BP's executives, ignores due process, and caters to his union supporters.