Instead of deferring initially to British Petroleum, then visiting with Bono in the Oval Office and and yukking it up with Jay Leno at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, this Palm Beach Post editorial says President Obama should have been more focused on the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama “acted way too much like George Bush after Katrina,” says the editorial.

With the Obama administration facing growing criticism and creeping Katrina comparisons for its initial reaction to the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and subsequent oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today offered a lengthy post on the White House blog defending the administration’s response.

Gibbs says President Obama “immediately began actively monitoring the incident and consulting on the response.” The word “immediately” appears four other times in the post and “quickly” appears twice, along with “rapidly” and “early on” and “from the start.”