Oil, what oil?

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand.
They danced by the light of the moon
- Edward Lear

Last week's White House presser had the chief energy adviser saying the "vast majority of the oil has either been cleaned, skimmed or contained." Not quite the catastrophe the administration had wanted to hang around the necks of "British Petroleum" aka BP. More an alignment with sentiments expressed by Tony Haywood.

Yes, this is still Exxon Valdez x five. But hardly Apocalypse Now. Universities in the southern states have been forthright in condemning the idea that this was the worst environmental disaster on record. One academic said nature cleans up its own way. With or without the Coastguard.

As the Obama administration starts to change tack on the oil spill catastrophe, it raises interesting questions on the perception of crisis and the role of the stakeholders. In playing down the impacts and amplifying the positive, whose crisis is the White House trying to close? Is it really suggesting that the crisis is over?

Certainly the crisis has not ended for BP. Theirs is really just starting. While the cap may have been placed on a high media profile through killing the oil well, as the emergency response scales down the corporate exposure ramps up. Early out of the blocks in this phase are the lawyers. Just watch them move.

Which leaves the possibility that someone has decided it's time for the White House to implement crisis management. In the rush they almost repeated what BP's Tony Hayward said about the "small drop in the ocean" following the Gulf of Mexico spill. The comment for which he, too, was pilloried.

By playing down the impacts of the spill so early in the aftermath of the event, it seems to suggest a move to pre-selected conclusions by an administration already under scrutiny following Hurricane Katrina. With a President whose ratings were defying gravity, it is not necessarily the best way to reach achieve closure. You might question some of BP's communication issues in the first weeks but full marks for keeping an eye on the main event; stop the leak.

What is even more interesting is how this feeds through to issues management in the US. First, a better grip on the facts seems a pre-requisite. Second, a distancing from a purely political agenda while remaining really close to the politicians and administrators. And third a follow-through of policy driven by gathered intelligence rather than by an often knee-jerk reaction.

This is something we in LINK call “Reputation on the LINE”.