(1) Hostage crisis & (2) Move to investigate risks looking like damage control while chilling cooperation with BP at the time it is needed most.

From The New York Times:

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it had begun civil and criminal investigations into the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as the deepening crisis threatened to define President Obama’s second year in office.

The more confrontational tone from Washington underscored concerns within the administration about the long-term effect of the oil spill, not only environmentally, economically and politically, but on the national psyche as well.

Like no other, the topic of the oil spill now dominates the national conversation. Early comparisons to Hurricane Katrina have dissolved into comparisons to the hostage crisis with Iran — an episode that spanned 444 days and beleaguered the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The spill has kept Mr. Obama from focusing attention on other issues, like creating jobs and carrying out the new health care law, at a time when polls suggest that public trust in government is declining and when his party is fighting to retain control of Congress.

“It’s an interesting disaster because it’s one that doesn’t stop — it’s as if Katrina sat on top of New Orleans for six weeks without going away,” said George Haddow, a disaster management consultant from New Orleans who was a senior Federal Emergency Management Agency official under President Bill Clinton.

For Mr. Obama, part of the problem has been that the solution to the BP disaster is at its heart an engineering problem, and one the government has already acknowledged it is in no position to fix on its own. Former Attorney General William P. Barr said the administration’s move to investigate risked looking like political damage control while chilling cooperation with the company at the time it is needed most.