On today's edition of America Live, Fox analyst and GOP super-fundraiser Karl Rove used several tired attack lines in an attempt to malign President Obama. Arguing that Obama “prefers campaigning to governing” and “unengaged” in the details of the presidency, Rove cited as evidence Obama's supposedly delayed reaction to last year's devastating BP oil spil. From today's America Live:

ROVE: Take a look at BP, for example, the oil spill in the gulf. It took him 55 days from the oil spill until he finally sat down with -- met with an expert who knew what the heck was going on in the Gulf of Mexico. He was criticized for not engaging in it, but it took him 55 days to sit down with somebody who was smart enough to know what the heck was going on. If you're sitting in the White House, one of the first things you want to do when an emergency arises, make sure the president has the best advice from people with subject-matter expertise, and it didn't happen there. And we see this time and time and time and time again. He just seems uninvolved.

Rove's claim that Obama was “uninvolved” in the BP spill is wrong. The rig exploded at 10 p.m. on April 20, 2010. The next day, Obama was briefed in the Oval Office by the heads of DHS, the Coast Guard, FEMA, and the Department of the Interior. He also sent David Hayes, deputy secretary of the Interior, to the region to “assist with coordination and response.” That same day, BP announced in a press release that the U.S. Coast Guard -- of which Obama is the commander-in-chief -- was leading the emergency response. By the end of April, assets of the Navy and Air Force had joined the Coast Guard in responding to the growing spill.

Further, Rove's claim that Obama's waited “55 days” to meet with an oil spill “expert” is irrelevant, since by that time Obama administration officials more directly involved in combating the spill had already done so. Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service, testified at a May 27, 2010, House of Representatives committee hearing that measures to stop the spill “have been taken with the continuous oversight of MMS, and with BP, at our urging, consulting the broadest possible array of drilling engineers.”