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You are here: Home / Open Threads / On a boat, motherfucker

On a boat, motherfucker

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Yesterday, I thought about going on my local Tea Party website and spoofing “Joe Barton was right, this *was* a Chicago-style shakedown and we all do owe Tony Hayward an apology”. But it turns out a lot of winger are already seriously saying this. We can’t be more than three or four days from the official “Joe Barton was right” opinion piece in the Washington Post, to be written by some AEI/Heritage bigwig.

Nevertheless, standing with Tony Hayward against Obama seems an increasingly foolish political move:

BP chief executive Tony Hayward, often criticized for being tone-deaf to U.S. concerns about the worst oil spill in American history, took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race off England’s Isle of Wight.

Reader Interactions

78Comments

  2. 2.

    Warren Terra

    Hayward is closely and personally supervising important offshore operations?
    Or, assuming the yachting is done under sail, he’s researching alternative energy?

  4. 4.

    Linda Featheringill

    In recent history, it has not been good politics to align with anybody against that skinny black man with the funny name.

    But risking your honor and perhaps your career to side with BP? I don’t think so.

  5. 5.

    Violet

    The Republicans are now claiming that the $20 billion in escrow was never Obama’s idea at all:

    Yesterday, though, the Republican message seemed to shift a bit, at least in some corners. What was initially deemed an outrageous presidential abuse turned into a GOP idea that Obama shouldn’t take credit for.

    Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), for example, issued a statement yesterday implicitly arguing that there couldn’t have been a shakedown, since BP intended to put $20 billion into the escrow fund before the White House meeting. “The true outrage,” Franks said, “is that this was never the President’s idea at all.”

    They don’t know what they want to say.

  6. 6.

    Polish the Guillotines

    C’mon, DougJ…

    So Mr. Hayward returned to Old Blighty. What’s the problem with that? You can’t really expect Mr. Hayward to go yachting in the Gulf of Mexico, can you? I mean, it’s all full of oil.

  8. 8.

    Nick

    @Violet: Another words, BP extored money by from themselves in a Chicago-style shakedown?

    The funny thing is Obama never said he forced BP to do it and had routinely said this week that BP themselves offered.

    So Franks is essentially saying what the President has been saying.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico to watch his boat “Bob” participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

    In other news, the entire writing staff of _The Onion_ committed suicide yesterday. A note was found at the scene reading “satire just can’t keep up with reality any more”.

    dms

  11. 11.

    Cat Lady

    Does he got a BP themed
    pashmina afghan?
    Is he the king of the world
    On a boat like Leo?

    @Violet: The cognitive dissonance. It burns.

  12. 12.

    Scamp Dog

    I’m all for mocking Joe Barton, but getting all excited over what entertainment Hayward is up to strikes me as pointless.

    It’s a lot more interesting to head over to the Oil Drum blog and find out a lot more than the fluff that the MSM and TPM put out.

  13. 13.

    cleek

    @Violet:

    They don’t know what they want to say.

    100% true.

    and it’s pretty fucking awesome watching them flail around trying to figure out how they can:

    1. oppose Obama (the #1 priority for any situation)
    2. while trying not to look like they’re defending BP
    3. but still trying to appear “pro-business”
    4. without minimizing the situation in the gulf
    5. while all the while ignoring the role better regulation would play

    all the GOP factions are moving in different directions because nobody has yet found a way to unify these forces. and frankly, i don’t think they can. but i think they will settle on some combination that’s logically incoherent but politically acceptable (because that’s what politics is about), and we’ll be spending a lot of time pointing out how their eventual attacks make no sense. as usual.

    until then, i can only hope that each faction does enough damage to the other factions that the whole GOP operation bursts into flames and sinks into the gulf.

  14. 14.

    Cat Lady

    @dmsilev:

    He named his boat Bob? It’s like that old kids joke – what do you call someone with no arms and no legs in the ocean.

  15. 15.

    DarcyPennell

    Yesterday my boss said that Joe Barton was correct, but saying so was a political miscalculation because of Barton’s oil company funding.

    He also said that I’m uncomfortable climbing the ladder to the upper level because I’m “a girl.” (I was complaining that I would have worn shoes with a good tread rather than sandals, if I’d known I was going to need to go up there.) ((I’m 40.))

    He always laughs when he says these things, and seems tickled when all his employees tell him to shut up. I can’t tell if he comes out with this shit just to get a rise out of us, or if he really believes it and getting a rise out of us is just a bonus.

  16. 16.

    Allison W.

    Seriously, why does anyone expect anything more from Hayward. He’s not from here and filthy rich. Put those two together and you have a guy who is emotionally disconnected from Americans and what this country means to them and little to no understanding of what its like to go without. I’ll be the lone one in saying, I don’t care what he does on his free time. If he wasn’t yachting, he would be at his plush home or hotel room getting personal butler service. And when he’s down at the Gulf, I’m sure his personal limo is not far away.

  17. 17.

    cleek

    @Allison W.:

    I’ll be the lone one in saying, I don’t care what he does on his free time.

    i really don’t either. but apparently the press does. and that might be good news for anyone who wants to be on the anti-BP side of things. (given the limits of what the press can do, obvs)

  18. 18.

    cat48

    Fox news is going with the “Chicago style shakedown” story so that story will stick w/those viewers. Will be interesting to see what the repugs story ends up being. I heard several Dems recommend an escrow fund so it must have been floating around Cong.

    Actually, Hayward is no longer handling the spill. Dudley, an American is and I think he is from the South so this might work out better for the Gulf folks.

  19. 19.

    Mark S.

    God, the guy’s had a stressful week. He already apologized.

    /Tunku

    OT- I’ve read a lot of people reference Rush’s latest atrocity of telling poor kids to dumpster dive, but I didn’t read anything in detail about it. I thought maybe it was just some one liner, but no, the fat fuck has been going on and on about this, even making “funny” little graphics of it on his hate site.

    But hey, he’s just an entertainer. A lot of people listened to Goebbels back in the day just for the laughs, not because they agreed with him. I’m just glad that there’s a comedian today who will stick it to The Man Poor Children.

  20. 20.

    scav

    Clearly, research. Namely a yacht, c’est à dire, a hole on top of the ocean you pour money into as a model for a hole on the bottom of the ocean you pour money into. There. sorted.

  21. 21.

    David

    You’re witnessing the birth of a new cottage industry in The-Gusher-of-Oil-in-the-Gulf-of-Mexico conspiracy theories.

    World Nut Daily will publish a book by Jerome Corsi or Philip Berg and they’ll start begging for money to file lawsuits to get to The Real Truth®.

    Perhaps Orly Taitz will get involved.

    And why did Obama board a black helicopter in a wetsuit carrying a map of the Gulf the night before the explosion?

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    OT, but this caption is front and center on New York Times at the moment.

    “Gov. Haley Barbour’s performance could help shift his image from that of an insider party boss to an out-front crisis manager — and possible presidential candidate.”

    GOP Stalwart Says Come On In, the Gulf’s Fine

    From the story:

    Recently dubbed “the anti-Obama” by Newsweek, Mr. Barbour has attributes that could prove to be a counterintuitive asset for him if he decides to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. “If you think ahead to 2012, we are not going to beat the president with someone who has the same M.O. as the president,” said Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, of which Mr. Barbour is chairman.

    … Mr. Barbour, who is prohibited by Mississippi’s term-limit laws from seeking re-election, has spoken to friends, donors and a roster of Republican operatives about a possible presidential run in 2012. He has spoken at conservative gatherings and “party building” events and traveled to dozens of states, including Iowa, the site of the first presidential caucus, as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/us/20barbour.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

    Any mention of a governor in the news, and you have a new GOP presidential candidate. Look out Obama.

    Nikki Haley, South Carolina state legislator and likely GOP gubernatorial candidate, if she prevails in this week’s runoff, is already being mentioned as a vice presidential possibility for 2012.

    PS: a political analyst quoted doubts Barbour will run, because he’s still fat and not fighting enough with Obama.

    Our coastal waters might be questionable, but our pundits are the best.

  23. 23.

    The Dangerman

    @Cat Lady:

    What do you call someone with no arms and no legs in the ocean?

    If the relief wells don’t work, Tony Hayward.

  24. 24.

    SiubhanDuinne

    This might have fit better in the thread about English schooldays, but I know a grande dame-type British matriarch who said last week, in all seriousness, about Tony Hayward: “You know, none of this would have happened if he had gone to Eton.”

    Swear to FSM.

  25. 25.

    Bill H

    And Obama was at a baseball game. I think it was perfectly proper and fitting for Obama to be at a baseball game, and I have no real problem with Hayward being at a yacht race. What is he supposed to be doing? There are plenty of things to be legitimately critical of him about, we don’t need to be making shit up and criticizing him for crap like this.

  27. 27.

    cat48

    @Bill H:

    Wrong! Baseball last nite & golf w/Joe today. He’s just asking for it! It is Father’s Day weekend tho.

  28. 28.

    scav

    It is a little disorienting that they’re picking on someone else for a change. Didn’t know they could still multi-task.

  30. 30.

    Drive By Wisdom

    At least the BP guy has been working, not something many liberals would ever understand. In the mean time, Obama continues his vacations while the 600+ who have died under his watch will not have a chance to go golfing. Always a double standard when it comes to democrats.

  31. 31.

    leftist

    I remember when Billionaires for Bush used to carry signs that said “Hands off Halliburton” and “Free Dick Cheney”.

    It’s actually not satire anymore. It’s reality.

  33. 33.

    Tim O

    Yea because an Alaskan Shakedown like Exxon pulled would really benefit the Gulf Coast residents. Wait 20 years for legal teams to hash it out and watch the award magically shrink to nothing.

  35. 35.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mark S. #19:

    El Rushbo said:

    *And this guy asked the strangest question. This bogus statistic that one out of 50 American children are homeless. What do you — what are you gonna do — I want to see the facts on that.*

    Am I crazy, or isn’t the US Census — participation in which has been actively discouraged by many Wingers — meant in part to establish exactly “the facts on that”?

    I’m really glad I don’t work for The Onion. I honestly wouldn’t know how to do my job.

  36. 36.

    Nylund

    Here in Texas, they played this story on the local news. Many of the people that called in expressed the opinion that Barton was right and that we’ve been “too hard” on BP. I was flabbergasted! Are there really Americans that believe that we’ve been too hard on BP? I guess so.

  40. 40.

    chaseyourtail

    Please god, let the right’s attempt to make a martyr out of “I want my life back” Tony be the gift that keeps on giving.

  43. 43.

    Dee Loralei

    @cat48: That’s not 100% true though. Hayward will eventually be replaced for day-to-day ops in the gulf, not immediately. The old guy just mispoke again. BP walked back his comments a few hours later. But it didn’t get a lot of dissemination.

    I don’t know, maybe this yacht race today is Haywards’ way of getting to stay home with his big life a bit quicker. Make himself so hated down on the gulf that BP couldn’t afford the bodyguards and hazzard duty insurance or something so that it would actually be cheaper for BP to keep him in the UK.

    More tone deafosity from our betters, the BIG people.

    I can see where he’d need a small break, a week off with his family. He’s pretty young he may have youngish children at home. But he should have done all that far from the public eye and the media glare. But not at some poncey posh thing on the fucking water for FSM’s sake!

    I honestly wouldn’t be suprised at the end of this to find him dead and nekkid in bed except for a wetsuit made from wd-40 with at least 2 dildos a la the last Bond movie and everybodies favorite dead pastor.

  46. 46.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Nylund:

    Texans think we have been too hard on BP:

    Is this Houston? Or closer to Odessa? Both oil towns but the western areas are quite a ways from the Gulf. I could see some of those folks being pro-oil and not that concerned about the Gulf.

  47. 47.

    Amir_Khalid

    @debbie: A member of Brunei’s royal family (not the Sultan himself, but one of his brothers) had a yacht named Tits. I swear to Ceiling Cat it’s true: Fortune ran a picture of it in a cover story on the Brunei royals back in the 1990s.

  49. 49.

    JL

    “Is this Houston? Or closer to Odessa? Both oil towns but the western areas are quite a ways from the Gulf. I could see some of those folks being pro-oil and not that concerned about the Gulf”.

    There’s no doubt sociopaths aren’t concerned about the Gulf catastrophe.

    They can call themselves anything they choose: Texans, Americans, human beings.. but above all the sick motherfuckers are twisted, vicious predators.

  50. 50.

    jwb

    @Elizabelle: “Our coastal waters might be questionable, but our pundits are the best.”

    Not surprising since have the best punditcare system in the world.

  51. 51.

    Cain

    Island of Wright? I remember when I used to skimp and save to rent a cottage there, and this bastard is going on a glitzy bing???

    Damn the scandle…

    cain

  52. 52.

    Calouste

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Yes, that’s the way that those people think. You could have pointed out that Churchill, who did go to Eton, was responsible for the disaster that were the Gallipoli landings.

  53. 53.

    Dee Loralei

    @The Other Chuck: LOL damned dangling modifiers or whatever. I meant last Bond movie had the murdered girl covered in oil and the dildos and wetsuit were from the other dead guy. Sorry, I really do need to use preview and the edit function after I post.

  54. 54.

    asiangrrlMN

    I don’t give a shit, but I do have to say that the appearance (for him) is just awful. Yachting, possibly the most elitist sport in the world, and he’s going because he has a yacht entered. I guess he’s gotten part of his life back! Heh heh. Whatever. He doesn’t amount to shit, anyway.

  55. 55.

    Uloborus

    @asiangrrlMN:
    Yeah, I actually consider this unimportant, but I think it’s funny because it *looks* bad, and he’s not a man who can afford to look worse.

    @Drive By Wisdom:
    Wait, when did the topic change to George Bush, who started both wars and spent more time on vacation than governing?

  56. 56.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    Sorry, but the outrage the media is manufacturing over this incident is idiotic. Expecting the CEO of BP to sit around in sackcloth and ashes is as stupid as expecting Obama to. The depth of stupidity was achieved by the ABC story I just saw, where the reporter asked a Gulf resident if the photo of Hayward looked like “a man in charge.”

    YES YOU FUCKING RETARDS. THE MEN IN CHARGE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST MULTINATIONALS LOOK LIKE MOTHERFUCKERS IN YACHTS. WELCOME TO “FREE MARKET” CAPITALISM.

    Seriously, do you have to be dropped on your head before you can get a job as a network journalist? Did Hayward suddenly morph into an asshole six weeks ago? Fuck, these brain dead journos almost make me feel sorry for the man.

  58. 58.

    hidflect

    “Ocean yachting. The only “sport” where you don’t have any of those pesky small people crowding you in as spectators.

    It’s just you, Tony, your multi-million dollar yacht and crew of servants, a nice glass of Champers and the fresh, fresh ocean spray.”

  59. 59.

    Perfect Tommy

    Oil Spill Fun Fact:
    Current estimates are that 60,000 barrels of oil per day are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from the blown-out BP well. To give you an idea of how much oil that is, picture the playing field at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore MD. The field is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide.

    60,000 barrels of crude oil would cover the field in a layer nearly six feet deep.

  60. 60.

    Uloborus

    @Perfect Tommy:
    Where do these estimates come from, anyway? My understanding was that absolutely no one knows how much oil is coming up, including BP.

  62. 62.

    someguy

    What kind of a sick fucker takes a vacation from overseeing the Gulf mess? Haywood ought to be “top shot” into the hole along with the rest of BP’s executives, and some golf balls ad other debris.

  63. 63.

    22state

    No winger needed.

    David Broder will write a column equating a BP bailout with bipartisanship.

  64. 64.

    Joey Maloney

    @Elizabelle:

    Any mention of a governor in the news, and you have a new GOP presidential candidate. Look out Obama.

    He’s plenty corrupt and stupid enough to be a Republican presidential candidate, but Jeezum Crisco have you ever heard him speak? He’d need an interpreter for any speeches given north of Clarksdale.

    Either that or some GOP will have to find a Henry Higgins for him. Maybe BillO could take a leave of absence.

  66. 66.

    Joe Buck

    The Economist magazine is basically saying this, that BP is being unfairly abused, that pressuring them into agreeing to the escrow account is a disaster for the capitalist system, and so on.

  67. 67.

    Uloborus

    @Joe Buck:
    I think the large scale media’s going to fall heavily on BP’s side, not because of a Master’s Of The Universe mentality, but because they really don’t want to see their own shares of BP tank.

  68. 68.

    cokane

    Ya, it’s interesting. I’m not so sure Barton’s initial apology was some revelation of a deeply felt political ideology. It seems just like boiler-plate tea party pandering. He’s just so isolated, he didn’t know it would backfire.

  69. 69.

    Drive By Wisdom

    What kind of a sick fucker takes a vacation from overseeing the Gulf mess?

    I do not know, but then I did not vote for Obama.

  70. 70.

    Uloborus

    @Drive By Wisdom:
    Ah, but Obama’s job isn’t to oversee the Gulf. Really, it’s idiots like you who think it is that are causing a lot of the media problems. He has a Rear Admiral and a hundred scientists for that.

    Hayward, on the other hand, really is BP’s point man here.

    Personally, I actually don’t have a problem with the yacht thing, but do try to ground *your* criticisms in reality, won’t you?

  71. 71.

    BruinKid

    Wait, what was your first link in the “already seriously saying this” supposed to be? It links to the same TPM story about “I’m on a boat”, Hayward edition.

    I will note that the brainiacs at American Thinker are defending BP over the escrow fund, and saying Obama “demanded” payment from BP, which he claims “suspends” the rule of law.

    Which law, he doesn’t say. LOL.

    (Though he may have a slight point about the enforcement mechanisms.)

    And then the commenters to that piece just go batshit insane in attacking Obama.

  72. 72.

    Perfect Tommy

    @Uloborus: The USGS has assembled a Technical Flow Rate Group that has teams of scientists assessing the flow using a variety of methods.

    They were convened out of concerns that BP was low-balling the estimates since fines are based on volume spilled. Based on current recovery rates, those concerns were valid.

  73. 73.

    Svensker

    @Mark S.:

    I’ve read a lot of people reference Rush’s latest atrocity of telling poor kids to dumpster dive, but I didn’t read anything in detail about it. I thought maybe it was just some one liner, but no, the fat fuck has been going on and on about this, even making “funny” little graphics of it on his hate site.

    I really wonder how people like my brother — who is evangelical and won’t watch a lot of movies because the actors are all depraved divorced people and who really does believe that Christians are supposed to help the poor — can love Rush. But cognitive dissonance does seem to help.

  74. 74.

    Svensker

    @Nylund:

    Are there really Americans that believe that we’ve been too hard on BP?

    Apparently, about 36%. An oddly familiar number of assholes.

  75. 75.

    Nickws

    @Drive By Wisdom:
    Aha, so you’re one of these Internet trolls born after January, 2009.

    Nice grasp of written English, toddler. The result of some kind of Yamaha method, I suppose.

  76. 76.

    AxelFoley

    @Drive By Wisdom:

    At least the BP guy has been working, not something many liberals would ever understand. In the mean time, Obama continues his vacations while the 600+ who have died under his watch will not have a chance to go golfing. Always a double standard when it comes to democrats.

    Someone plug this fool’s mouth, my zipper’s stuck.

  77. 77.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    @Uloborus:

    Hayward, on the other hand, really is BP’s point man here

    Hayward is the C-E-Fucking-O of BP. His job is to park his ass in a yacht and chair a sixty minute board meeting every three months. THAT’S WHAT CEOs FUCKING DO. Now he’s gone the extra kilometer; he made himself look like an idiot in that TV commercial they keep running. He made himself look like an idiot testifying before Congress. He’s given the journos a convenient punching bag. Seems to me he’s done everything in the job description.

    For fuck’s sake, what purpose does it serve to have him perform all the same empty gestures that we demand of the President? Do you want to see him standing on the beach, shirtsleeves rolled up, pulling his best faux concern face?

    I’m the opposite of the idiot journos here. I want to see pictures of CEOs of massive multinationals chilling on yachts. I want to see pictures of them snorting coke off of naked supermodels. I want to see pictures of them in bed with dead hookers. The more pictures of them as they are and the fewer of them doing fake political horseshit theater, the better.

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