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As the , the TV networks' assembled White House reporters - Chuck, Major, Jake and Chip - stopped their live broadcasts and promptly sat down in their front-row seats while the photographers' cicada chatter of shutters started up.

But the president made us wait until the very end for his best performance. For almost an hour, he talked and answered eight questions thoughtfully, defensively and with a lot of detail. There was a lot of meat.

Barack Obama wanted to stress that from the first day of the crisis, dealing with it had been his top priority. Given the chance to back off his commitment to deep sea drilling, he said that it was needed but the cosy and corrupt relationship with the oil industry would end.

There would be tougher, tighter regulation in future. Interestingly, he said that while he had no doubts about how the government had reacted since the crisis, he did wonder whether they should have been in a better position to cope. He suggested the federal government might need its own equipment, its own team, paid for by the oil companies.

He had reached the end of his answer to the last question when he paused and went into what was obviously a pre-planned riff.

"This is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about.

"And it's not just me, by the way. When I woke this morning and I'm shaving and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, 'Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?' Because I think everybody understands that when we are fouling the Earth like this, it has concrete implications not just for this generation, but for future generations."

He went on to say: "In case you were wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down."

It won't be enough to stop the criticism. Only plugging the hole will do that. Tomorrow, the president will be in Louisiana.

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