Who Has Been In Charge?

From the transcript of President Obama’s press conference yesterday,

But make no mistake: BP is operating at our direction. Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance.
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They do so under our supervision, and any major decision that they make has to be done under the approval of Thad Allen, the National Incident Coordinator. So this notion that somehow the federal government is sitting on the sidelines and for the three or four or five weeks we've just been letting BP make a whole bunch of decisions is simply not true.

That is completely inconsistent with the evidence that we have been looking at for the past five weeks. The Coast Guard command has been saying that everything was up to BP and that BP could not be replaced to deal with the crisis, Napalitano has been talking about how we would “push BP aside” if they did not produce results, and every press release has been issued by BP or has been made quoting BP officials. Every decision has been announced as being a BP decision. Prior to Wednesday not once has there been any reference to a decision being made or an action being authorized by any agency of the government.

This is the first reference to the Coast Guard’s Thad Allen as National Incident Coordinator that I have seen, although on Hardball he referred to himself as "National Incident Commander," and I have been paying very close attention to this disaster. On Thursday's Hardball interview he made reference to actions he has authorized, and that was the first time that he has used that kind of language in any interview I have seen him particiate in.

I am not prepared to say that President Obama is lying, but if he is telling the truth then the government has been doing a masterful job of concealing its role in the management of this crisis, and I cannot for the life of me imagine why they would want to do that.