President Obama gave a press conference, just to make sure everyone knows that he's really mad at BP for spilling all that oil and saying, "it is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down."

The press conference, which lasted a little more than an hour, was an opportunity for the president to tell everyone that a) he's still in charge (even though BP are the guys with the technology and the know-how) and b) he's super-pissed about the whole thing. As such, it mostly focused on the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama was apologetic about the shortcomings of his administration's response—"mistakes are made" when confronting disasters this large, he said (one mistake, for example, was letting BP drill that deep in the first place)—but also defensive at the suggestion that the White House had been "slow." He was candid about the "scandalously close relationship between oil companies and the agency that regulates them."

As for offshore drilling, it's not going anywhere: He's announced a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling permits, but maintained that "domestic oil production is an important part of our overall energy" strategy. Great.

[NYT; pic via AP]