Free the BP one!

It's hard to imagine anything more sickening. No, not the sight of BP chief executive Tony Hayward watching his yacht sail round the Isle of Wight at the weekend, but the hoots of predictable derision from his detractors in the US and elsewhere.

According to a White House spokesman, "Well, to quote Tony Hayward, he’s got his life back, as he would say. And I think we can all conclude that Tony Hayward is not going to have a second career in PR consulting. This has just been part of a long line of PR gaffes and mistakes.”

Greenpeace (who else?) declared that Hayward was "rubbing salt into the wounds" of Gulf residents. Oh, really?

Gruesome though the oil spill in the Gulf is - both for the families of the eleven men killed in the original explosion (remember them?) and the people whose livelihoods have been affected by the accident - it doesn't mean that Tony Hayward or other senior BP executives should have to give up any semblance of a private life.

In fact I sense a bit of class envy in this post on the Larry King Live blog: "A posh weekend at an annual yacht race off the coast of England has embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward once again treading water in social media ..."

Heaven help Barack Obama if the media catch him smiling or having a moment of relaxation before the oil in the Gulf is finally capped. And we can't have that. After all, it wouldn't do to have a normal person in charge of the White House, would it?

As for BP, perhaps we should put a cyborg in charge and be done with it.

Comments

[Martin V]

Frankly, for (almost) ANY American politican or commentator to get angry with some of the UNINTENTIONAL consequences of our quest for oil is a bit rich.

Or is all that blood and treasure being expended in Afghanistan and Iraq because of the West's desperate need for parsnips ?

Shit happens.

But it's always worse when it lands on YOUR own doorstep.......................