So where exactly does John Boehner stand on whether the federal government should chip in for the cleanup of and damages caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

For today at least, the answer to that question seemed to get a bit complicated.

At a briefing this morning, Mr. Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, appeared to suggest that the government should help out financially with the cleanup. Asked by a reporter whether the taxpayers should “pitch in” – a thought that has been attributed to Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce – the Ohio Republican said: “I think the people responsible for the oil spill — BP and the federal government — should take full responsibility for what’s happening there.”

And then the fun started.

Democrats and liberals quickly jumped on the claim. For example, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, sent out a statement on Thursday saying “the public deserves to know whether Republicans are going to join Democrats to hold BP accountable, or just continue to protect big oil companies — the same way Republicans have protected big banks and health care companies.”

For his part, Mr. Boehner’s spokesman has indicated that there was a bit of a misunderstanding over the question. And in a statement, the spokesman, Michael Steel, also signaled that Mr. Boehner was trying to make a broader point.

“Boehner made a general statement about who is responsible for the spill, and the federal government oversight was clearly lacking, but he has said repeatedly that BP is responsible for the cost of the cleanup,” Mr. Steel said.

Mr. Boehner, for the record, has made that last point in recent weeks. (In this release, for example, Mr. Boehner said “Not a dime of taxpayer money should be used to clean up their mess.”)

But, of course, the back-and-forth didn’t just end there.

The liberal blog Talking Points Memo and Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat, were among those drawing a distinction between the cleanup of the spill and the damages caused by it. A release from Mr. Menendez’s office said the top House Republican was evading “the issue of whether BP should pay for all economic damages from the spill, stating merely that BP is responsible for ‘the costs of the cleanup’ – which is already required by law.”

By the end of the day, Mr. Steel, Mr. Boehner’s spokesman, had specified that the minority leader believed BP was responsible for both.

On a related note, Mr. Menendez is among the lawmakers pushing for legislation that would do away with the liability cap currently in place for oil companies. Republicans have said that approach would aid larger companies like BP and Exxon.