The PR Geniuses at BP

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You know, British Petroleum probably thought it had made a pretty good choice when it picked Tony Hayward to be its CEO.

He's young, he's good-looking, he's got great hair, and he's got that charming British accent. The power of this last trait is not to be underestimated, as I discovered in college when a classmate from Great Britain was explaining why he hadn't done his assignment for that day. "You can tell me anything you want," the female teaching assistant cooed, "as long as you do it in that accent."

I was not, it should be noted, well pleased by this. But it did teach me an important truth of life: You can get away with almost anything if you make it sound like you're doing it on "Masterpiece Theatre."

The operative word there being "almost." In the aftermath of the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf, Hayward, accent notwithstanding, has apparently discovered a true genius for ticking people off.

First he tried to downplay the potential effects of the spill, saying the effect of millions of gallons of oil spewing into the ocean would be "very very, modest" and that the spill itself would be "tiny."

Then Hayward exhibited the kind of sensitivity one would normally associate with decapitated French royalty when he told an interviewer, on-camera, "There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back." Gulf residents were quick to point out that since there are a few million people along the coast who could say the same thing, to say nothing of 11 workers killed by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, their sympathy for Hayward's inconvenience was, shall we say, somewhat muted.

Things went from bad to worse when BP Chairman Carl-Henrik Svanberg tried to step in to reassure people and managed only to step into an even deeper hole. "We care about the small people," Svanberg said after a four-hour meeting at the White House with President Obama. "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are really companies that don't care, but that is not the case in BP, we care about the small people."

Now, I'll be fair here and note that Svanberg is a Swede and English is clearly not his first language. So he probably didn't really mean to imply that the people of the Gulf coast were hobbits. Still, when you're trying to manage a disaster of biblical proportions, it might be a good idea to have someone in front of the cameras who knows the language.

Fortunately BP, alone and embattled, managed to find a defender, a white knight who rode to the rescue of their besieged reputation. Who was this brave paladin, this defender of poor and downtrodden BP? It should surprise no one to learn that it was a Texas Republican.

"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Rep. Joe Barton said during congressional hearings on the spill. "I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown." Barton actually apologized for the White House being so mean to poor BP.

That rumbling you heard immediately afterwards was the sound of a thousand Democratic political strategists dancing for joy. Horrified fellow Republicans immediately disavowed Barton, even threatening to strip him of his seniority on the Energy and Commerce Committee. It's OK, you see, to be a harlot for the oil industry, but it's a PR problem to be such a shameless one.

Barton immediately began his own familiar song and dance.

First, it was the old "I didn't really say that" defense: "If anything I have said this morning has been misconstrued to an opposite effect," Barton said, "I want to apologize for that misconstruction." Then the "well, I did say it but I'm sorry" sidestep: "I apologize for using the term 'shakedown' with regard to yesterday's actions at the White House ... and I retract my apology to BP." Now all that's left is to apologize to the English language for atrocities like "misconstrued to an opposite effect" and "tragedy of the first proportion."

So in the end, Barton's apologized, Hayward's been pulled off of "day-to-day" management of the spill by BP, and Svanberg is probably still asking everyone (in Swedish) "What? What did I say?" And the oil continues to flow.

Sigh. Even I can't find anything to be amused about in that.

Same Old Song And Dance

Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton apologizes to poor, put-upon British Petroleum for the mean way they've been treated by the White House:

"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said. "I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown."

"I apologize," Barton told Hayward. "I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is -- again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize."

Then, when other GOP lawmakers suggest that maybe taking the side of the people that poisoned the Gulf of Mexico and ruined countless lives doesn't make for good visuals, the good old fashioned sidestep begins. First, the old "I didn't really say what I said" dodge:

"I think BP is responsible for this accident, should be held responsible," Barton said, before adding that he also thinks the company should pay for costs of the spill. "If anything I have said this morning has been misconstrued to an opposite effect, I want to apologize for that misconstruction," he added.

Then the "okay, forget what I just said, I actually did say what I said I didn't say, but now I'm sorry I said it":

"I apologize for using the term 'shakedown' with regard to yesterday's actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP," he said. "...I regret the impact that my statement this morning implied that BP should not pay for the consequences of their decisions and actions in this incident."

I mean they do this every freakin' time. Horrible statement, claims of being misquoted or misconstrued, then the apology, and suddenly all the bullshit is forgiven. How long are people going to let them get away with this crap?

Well, the Hobbits, At Least, Should Be Pleased

BP Chairman: 'We Care About the Small People' : "BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg today said that President Obama “is frustrated because he cares about the small people. And we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are really companies that don’t care, but that is not the case in BP, we care about the small people.”

The Swedish-born Svanberg made his comments after a more than four hour meeting between BP executives and White House officials, including President Obama."

Here's a hint, ya'll. The next time you have someone make a statement on your behalf, you might want to make sure he or she is either a native English speaker or someone who understands the language's idioms. Because you're gonna get crucified for this.

Obama Is Not Hysterical Enough

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I've gone through a lot of emotions in the past few weeks as I watch report after report on the horrific oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. It started with concern, progressed through alarm, then horror, then dread, then more horror, then outrage, back to dread, then anger, a couple of days of numb shock, and now I've settled into a kind of simmering fury, although to be honest, distinguishing that from my normal mood is a bit tricky.

Were I the president, I'd be ordering Navy SEALs to blast their way into BP's corporate -headquarters, haul the officers and the board of directors out onto the street in handcuffs, and start shooting one an hour until they stopped the leak.

This is why it's a good thing I'm not the president.

The cries for the man who actually is president to "Fix it! Fix it now!" have spread beyond the usual "Blame Barack First" contingent. When pressed for details, however, you can usually get them to admit that, well, it's true, the U.S. government isn't failing to deploy some sort of supersecret well-capping sub that could stop the leak.

And yes, they'll admit when cornered, "kicking BP off the site" would be counterproductive. For good or ill, the oil companies who do the drilling are the only ones who have the deep-sea technology to even try to stop a leak like this.

So, struggling for some way to make this all Obama's fault, they complain that it's not enough to have deployed the Coast Guard, sacked the head of the Minerals Management Service, suspended further deep-water drilling, frozen new deep-water drilling permits and opened a criminal probe into the accident that caused the spill. Because gosh-darn it, he's just not mad enough about it.

James Carville huffed, "This president needs to tell BP, 'I'm your daddy,'" which frankly is pretty creepy even for Carville. Film director Spike Lee urged the president to "go off, one time!" The New York Times' Maureen Dowd referred to him as "President Spock" and complained, "Too often it feels as though Barry is watching from a -balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down."

When assured by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that the president was "enraged" over what was going on, CBS correspondent Chip Reid eagerly asked, "Can you describe it? Does he yell and scream? What does he do?"

Folks, this is beyond silly.

Part of the reason people voted for this guy is that, in contrast to the mercurial, erratic and often grumpy McCain, Barack Obama was the one who seemed calm, collected and in command of himself. Remember when McCain "suspended his campaign" and rushed back to Washington with his hair on fire over the financial meltdown? Once the big meeting that McCain insisted President Bush convene was over, it was Barack Obama who came out of the fray looking like the guy who ought to be in command.

I voted for Obama because he acted like a grownup, and while I've been disappointed with him in some ways, he hasn't yet let me down on that one.

So when David Broder of the supposedly liberal Washington Post starts comparing him unfavorably to Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon, who had to stop a -hearing on the oil spill's impact "because he was weeping so hard," I have to wonder:

With all due respect to Rep. Melancon, exactly what would be the reaction of all of these complainers if they turned on the TV and the leader of the Free World was weeping so uncontrollably he'd lost the power of speech? Or if he were pounding his fists on the lectern and screaming with rage? I suspect it would be divided between "Obambi, in over his head, loses control" and "Oh, lord, this must be even worse than we thought."

I'm reminded of a scene in the movie "This Is Spinal Tap" when, after a particularly hilarious fiasco, the band's manager defends himself by saying he was only following the instructions of their dimwitted lead guitarist. "It's not your job to be as confused as Nigel!" one of the other band members snaps.

Likewise, it's not the president's job to be as crazy with anger and despair as we are. Do we really need a president whose motto is, "When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout"?