If Obama had given today’s press conference four weeks ago, he might be in far less hot water than he’s currently in. But stepping up to the teleprompter 38 days after the initial spill, with all the intervening time and press coverage of the event, and asserting that he’s been on top of it like white on rice since Day One comes across very much like historical revisionism from the department of C.Y.A.

The press, to the extent they do their jobs, should be able to easily go back through the chronology of the last five weeks and find plenty of gaping holes in Obama’s claim of instant, constant, and urgent engagement on behalf of the White House and his administration. Obama said he’d leave the Katrina comparisons to the media which, given the skepticism expressed by some of the questions by reporters, is something he might live to regret.

Two other problems with the press conference, one factual and one stylistic. The first: it came across as contradictory for Obama – again, for a man who claims to be waking up and going to bed thinking about nothing else – to be so uninformed about the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of Elizabeth Birnbaum, the director of MMS. I saw the news hit the wire just before the press conference and assumed, probably like most people, that it was a coordinated, preemptive piece of PR by the White House. But that’s not how it appeared when the President told reporters he learned about it this morning and wasn’t aware of the circumstances surrounding her departure.

Read More: by Tom Bevan, Real Clear Politics

For more than a month, the American Gulf Coast has been threatened by a gigantic oil spill, caused by the April 21 explosion of a British Petroleum deepwater rig. Yet unlike five years ago — when the media were quick to put the onus on the Bush administration for its handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — for four weeks, ABC, CBS and NBC failed to scrutinize the administration’s ineffectual response to this disaster, now blasted even by such Democratic stalwarts as ex-Clinton operative James Carville.

On Wednesday’s Good Morning America, Carville accused the President of “political stupidity” for not making the oil spill a top priority. “It just looks like he’s not involved in this! Man, you have got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving! We’re about to die down here!” Carville specifically faulted Obama for not deploying sufficient federal resources to protect the valuable marshes in southern Louisiana.

While the media fancy themselves as government watchdogs, such criticisms were virtually absent from the first four weeks of the networks’ oil spill coverage. MRC analysts studied all 157 stories about the spill aired on ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening newscasts from April 21 through May 20. We discovered that only two of those stories (a measly 1%) actually centered on evaluations of how Obama and his top officials were handling the crisis, while another seven stories included minor references to criticisms of the administration. Thus, in the first full month after the spill, 95 percent of network evening news stories were devoid of any criticism of the President and top officials.

In contrast, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast five years ago, the networks waited barely 72 hours to blast the federal response. NBC’s Brian Williams, on the September 1, 2005 Nightly News, channeled the complaints of those who demanded to know: “Why isn’t more being done, and faster?” Over on CBS that night, anchor Bob Schieffer cast the President as “under growing criticism for a slow response,” while correspondent John Roberts (now with CNN) touted how “editorial pages across the nation aimed sharp barbs at Mr. Bush.”

Read More: By Rich Noyes, Newsbusters

Apple Inc shot past Microsoft Corp as the world’s biggest tech company based on market value on Wednesday, the latest milestone in the resurgence of the maker of the iPhone, which nearly went out of business in the 1990s.

Apple’s shares rose as much 2.8 percent on Nasdaq on Wednesday, as Microsoft shares floundered, briefly pushing its market value above $229 billion, ahead of its longtime rival.

Both stocks ended down after a late-day sell-off, but Apple emerged ahead with a market value of about $222 billion, compared with Microsoft’s $219 billion, according to Reuters data.

Apple shares closed down 0.4 percent at $244.11 on Nasdaq, while Microsoft fell 4 percent to a seven-month low of $25.01.

Shares of Apple are worth more than 10 times what they were 10 years ago, as it has profited from revolutionizing consumer electronics with its stylish, easy to use products such as the iPod, iPhone and MacBook laptops.

Read More: Reuters