As Keith noted before getting into the meat of this interview, BP apparently doesn't understand that they're not going to improve their image by doing things like this.
In another effort to repair its image, BP picks up tab for fireworks show in Colorado:
In struggling to save its brand name from drowning in backlash from the Gulf oil disaster, BP has launched multiple efforts to revamp its image as “part of the community.” Now, the “embattled oil giant” has “stepped forward to pay” for the annual July Fourth fireworks display in Durango, CO. Agreeing to pay for the display five months before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP is pitching the display as a community donation.
...Many conservative leaders have jumped on the “shakedown” bandwagon, seeing BP’s $20 billion for an escrow fund as a real danger to the company’s viability. But if the company can pay for fireworks and baseball trophies while launching aggressive media campaigns and funding a front group to downplay the disaster, BP can cover its responsibility to the victims in the Gulf.
Maybe one of these days the idiots that run PR for BP will figure out that actually taking care of cleaning up and containing rather than hiding and dispersing the oil gushing out of that pipe is the only thing that's going to satisfy anyone who's not a complete moron and that is following how they've handled this disaster. They're obviously so used to getting away with this sort of corporate malfeasance that the media generally ignores that they are hoping this won't be any different than business as usual for them.
And then we have Haley Barbour, who again is showing himself to be nothing but a puppet of big oil.
Haley Barbour: ‘No one has more to lose in this deal than BP.’:
Although the BP oil disaster has killed 11 men, poisoned thousands of animals, and ruined the livelihoods of millions of Americans, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) still believes that the foreign oil giant has suffered the most. Gov. Barbour has dismissed this catastrophe from day one, comparing the toxic oil to “toothpaste” and worrying about the impact of paying damages on BP’s finances. In an interview with NPR on Thursday, Barbour brushed off the suggestion that the conservative ideology of deregulation should be reconsidered, saying that “the idea that more regulation is necessarily better, I think a very suspect idea.” In fact, Barbour cited the greatest environmental catastrophe in American history as proof that “the market system works,” saying that BP is the biggest victim “in this deal”:
I think right now every oil company in the world says, I don’t want to pay $100 million a day to cut corners on drilling a well. And that’s where I believe the market system works. Nobody’s got more to lose in this deal than BP.
And last but not least we have Bobby Jindal who is demanding that the federal government comes clean with their record on this response, but when it comes to his own record... maybe not so much.
Jindal Vetoes Bill To Open Oil Spill Records:
Gov. Bobby Jindal has vetoed a bill that would have required him to preserve and make public all documents his office handles regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster.
Jindal, in the veto released Friday, said the legislation would have hurt the state's position in future litigation against BP PLC. The oil giant leased the rig which exploded April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers.
Sen. Robert Adley, the lawmaker who added the public records language into the bill, said Jindal's position makes no sense. Adley called the governor hypocritical for asking BP to release records as he's refusing to release his own.
The Jindal administration has repeatedly fought attempts to open most of his office's records to public scrutiny -- or to require preservation of those documents.
Looks like a big case of CYA to me. Gov. Jindal has done a whole lot of screaming about the government not coming to the rescue while doing very little himself from what I've followed of this mess. Not that I want to give the response on the federal level a pass.
I've said this more than once and I'll say it again. The criminals should not be in charge of cleaning up the crime scene. Everyone needs to be letting our elected officials know that this is not acceptable.
