Ever since the BP oil spill was controversially dubbed "Obama's Katrina" by the president's critics, the White House has been diligently outlining its response to the disaster. But the president's PR strategy may face problems following a report by the Center for Responsive Politics:

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama... During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.

Mediaite's Glynnis MacNicol anticipates an uproar:

You can see where this is going… The media loves numbers, and these I imagine will prove to be rather uncomfortable for Obama. Combined with his decision earlier this year to expand off-shore drilling one suspects he’s going to have some tough questions to answer in the next few days, ones that have nothing to do with Katrina. On This Week on Sunday Bill Maher said he was looking forward to seeing Obama do some serious backpedaling on the oil issue: “a flip flop I can believe in.” This is the sort of story that might inspire that to happen sooner than later.

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John Hudson