I really think that the people criticizing how the White House has handled the crisis would be criticizing him just as loudly no matter what Obama had done. If he had done more, people would be blasting him for Big Government interference. If he had done less, people would be blasting him for fiddling while Rome burned. The White House has has been monitoring the crisis from the beginning; but as has been said, all of the equipment and expertise to resolve this problem is in the hands of private industry, which has been mobilized to the extent it can be, and is being closely monitored every step of the way, and government services are being mobilized to the degree they can be useful.
Because of the action taken, relatively little of the oil has made it to the coastline. Projections had been that shoreline contamination would be earlier and much, much worse, as I recall. Also remember that BP either deliberately or accidentally grossly underreported how much oil was leaking. People are being very obtuse is assuming this is something anyone–even St. Reagan–can fix quickly.
Since there’s truly little that government intervention can achieve, the criticism amounts to people expecting Obama to spend tax dollars putting on a show for the electorate. I for one am glad he hasn’t.