BP-Dee and BP-Dum

Tony Hayward, the British invasion re-enactor is about to be yanked as BP CEO in favor of an American-born Benedict Arnold re-enactor. Clearly, U.S. nationality is accidental in the globalized corporatist world. On the other hand, a U.S.-based BP CEO won’t require a “Green Card” to direct the next phase of BP’s litigious screwing of its victims in Big Oil-friendly Louisiana and Texas courts.

Hayward gets his “life back,” lots more sailing forays around the Isle of Wight in his yatch, and a golden parachute which includes a year’s salary (he made $6 million last year). Shifty-eyed Texas-based Bob Dudley succeeds the imperious Hayward as disinformation point man in all BP oil catastrophe matters. Dudley, whose body language screams evasiveness, was apparently viewed favorably by BP’s Board and Chairman Karl-Henric Svanberg as a perfect Hayward successor to fool all those dear devastated “little people” in the Gulf states. He’ll have to work on his Southern drawl, though, which should improve once he holds closed-door meetings with Joe Barton, David Vitter, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, et al to dish out BP campaign contributions. Doubtless, Dudley’s outrageous on-camera dissimulations, particularly in the safe corporate-underwritten environment of the PBS NewsHour, fielding “viewers questions” in which he managed to say absolutely nothing in the presence of a host-facilitator who never challenged him, impressed the BP Board, its shareholders, and its largely Republican Party clients.

Here’s Dudley pretending he doesn’t know how much oil was actually spilled, carefully parsing his words so they don’t come back to bite him in the ass. They do, but still they’re not necessarily actionable in court. This guy’s outrageous disinformation is a howl -– “exaggeration and scaremongering … 5,000 barrels a day is the best estimate of the industry experts.” The best estimate from the U.S. government Flow Rate Technical Group is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day. Watch:



This dude is a good politician. Here is Dudley in full campaign mode, shedding crocodile tears as he plays the “people at BP” are “deeply affected” victims role. Was Dudley already campaigning for Hayward’s job? Hmm …