What Tony Hayward Should Have Said Today

Ladies Gentlemen of the Committee,

Thank you for inviting me to this important hearing regarding the Gulf Coast disaster. It's important, not because any new information will be uncovered that will help you and us avoid incidents like this disaster in the future, or because any other sort of meaningful change, justice, reconciliation or fact-finding will result, but because this is an election year and you need to get your faces on tv and demonstrate things like "empathy" and "anger" and you need to create the illusion of "accountability."

The people you'll be asking to vote for you have very short attention spans. So short they probably can't grasp the definition of the word accountability for more than 30 seconds at a time. But they know they like it, and they want it, and they're just so used to turning to idiots like you to come up with it. They are utterly incapable of defining what accountability would look like for people like me and my company, and god help them if you asked under what authority this Committee or the Congress of which it is a part has to impose real accountability, they might suffer an aneurysm on the spot and die. So, as it goes, none of you has an answer to those questions either because none of you need one. You just need to say the word "accountability" and act angry, and indeed, all of you, to a man, recognize that that is each of your sole purposes for having this hearing today.

Would that you were honest and concerned about getting at the truth, you would grant me my status as a crude and calculating CEO concerned exclusively about my company's bottom line. For that is exactly what I am, no more, no less. Instead of scolding my moral choices and failings, for not prioritizing safety enough, or not developing a back up plan to counter exactly this unprecedented scenario, you would instead recognize that I am an amoral creature, who cared exactly enough about safety as I was able to gauge and calculate the costs associated with safety risks. Obviously I was not indifferent to safety, to disaster. I was concerned about these things. But, I was admittedly not so out of concern for peoples lives, or worry about our environment. I was interested in building a well that would not explode because wells and rigs are expensive to build and replace. I was interested in building a well that would not leak because leaks are costly to clean up, and collecting oil makes my company money. Today you will paint me as a monster at worst, or as a cold and indifferent man at best, but I am nothing more than a rational actor (though perhaps influenced by the irrationality of the unprecedented risk) in a for-profit industry. You cannot accuse me of immorality without accusing your Committee and Congress of dereliction of duty. Your accusation may convey anger and the illusion of accountability, but they also tell the American people - the people you are about to pander to - that your legislative approach to this issue, your practice of looking out for their best interests and safety, your level of concern over the possibility of these disasters was hands-off, lax and low, respectively, based entirely on your faith in the morality of a man you had never met and had an enormous company to run.

The information wasn't hidden to you, Committee Members. As we all know, your Congress established an agency to monitor our safety and our engineering, to monitor environmental risks. This Committee oversees that agency. I would presume it would take no more than an hour for anyone of you to access information on this rig at any time before this disaster. My company gave your agency a whole lot of information, even information about where we were "cutting corners." But what did your agency do? They proceeded to give my company exemption after exemption. And we worked closely with this agency, they knew our company well. Indeed many of the bureaucrats employed at your agency used to work for my company, and employees and government workers spent a great deal of time together partying, exchanging gifts, having relationships etc. I call it "your agency" because that agency answered to this body. If this hearing's focus was honesty, truth and prevention then each Committee member would recount what information was available, what questions he or she asked, and what actions he or she took. But doing this would doubtless cause you embarrassment and possibly even cost you elections, so this will be avoided.

You oversaw a corrupt agency that you created and charged with the conflicting and corruption-inviting mission of collecting revenue and regulating safety of the oil industry. But, I doubt any part of today's hearing will focus on what Congress could have done better. Who among you voted for a $75mil cap on liabilities of companies like mine? What kind of message does that send to profit-conscious companies about focusing on managing risks and taking extra safety precautions? One would expect that none of you who voted for that measure will sit here today and criticize my lack of focus on safety. But one would be crediting you with possessing some modicum of shame, and in that they might err.

My point is, Ladies and gentlemen, that I am almost certainly guilty of very bad, terrible judgment; obviously I desperately wish to go back in time and spend an extra billion dollars taking every conceivable safety precaution to ensure averting this disaster; my company will take decades to recover; my reputation as a business man and human being are forever destroyed; and I do truly feel sympathy and grief for those who have been harmed or killed by this disaster. I am also guilty of greed. But we knew that. You knew that. You had to know it. Not the greed that drives a man to kill and destroy in the name of making a buck, but greed that makes a man singularly focused on profits and efficiency, and dividends and stock prices, excluding all other interests. I was a CEO living in the real world. My motivations were cost/(risk)/benefit analysis and compliance with regulations. You, this committee and the Congress it belongs to, skewed the former in favor of more reckless behavior, and you created, oversaw and tacitly condoned a horrifically broken system of the latter.

Have at me all you will if it will help you sleep at night, I imagine that's not so easy for any of you these days.

On the Count of Just Generally Being the Worst Fucking People on the Planet, What Say You?

“We have what we think is a sufficient basis for us to have begun a criminal investigation”

That's our chief law enforcement officer in the nation talking about going after British Petroleum. He sounds awfully confident and fierce doesn't he? I mean, it seems like at this particular time he seems fairly confident that the factors rise to the level of appropriately considering the possible contemplation of a pursuit of some form of legal action... potentially.

This statement, in the overall context can be read 1 of 2 ways. A) The Attorney General wanted to make the most non-committal statement imaginable, while also saying enough to produce national headlines with phrases in them like "Obama Administration!"" "Criminal Investigation!" "Against BP!" Or B) The Attorney General is saying "Fuck those assholes, I want to attach legal electrical nodes to their corporate nuts and go to fucking town! And, woo-hoo I think I can actually do this with some element of legitimacy cuz some shit or the other is 'sufficient'."

I could make my case for why I think it's A) more so than B) or vice versa but really, does it even matter? Which is better? Or rather, which is dumber? Either way, our Attorney General is once again revealing himself as a tool of the political calculus of the Obama administration, not a law enforcer. If prosecuting crimes was American Idol, he'd be fucking Ryan Seacrest, the guy who just announces the results and does what he's told; he's not even Simon Cowell with an ounce of consistency and integrity and a brain of his own.

To be clear: Fuck BP. Randomly drawing names of BP employees and forcing them to fight eachother to the death on pay per view seems almost reasonably just at this point, so it's not that I oppose - at least morally - some sort of very serious punishments for those scumbags. But the Attorney General position is meant to be an honest and neutral enforcer of the law, not a political pawn wielding his enormous power based on opinion polls. Whatever anyone may think of BP, however furious some might be, does anyone in their actual, rational mind not want them to be prosecuted under clear and standing laws in a legitimate, transparent and fair way? Does anyone want to deny BP their right to defend themselves at a potential trial? Is anyone in favor of a prosecutor standing before a court and saying "Well uh, we're not sure what laws exactly were broken here, but I just fucking HATE these people, so I'm charging them with "world-rape" and "douche-noodling" and my evidence is all that shit that went down in the water, I mean come on!" Would anyone find such a process and spectacle satisfying?

Obviously, Holder is not quite heading down a path to legal anarchy, and from what I've read it appears there is ample evidence that BP has in fact violated serious and important laws, but clearly these "investigations" are, at least in no small part, about a national catharsis, a giant "Fuck You" on behalf of all Americans. And that, manifested in criminal prosecutions, is only different in degree to the fictitious scenario I drew up above.

Let's go back to Holder's quote and compare this to his failure to prosecute law-breaking in the Bush administration: Holder himself called water-boarding torture, and torture is plainly described as a crime under domestic law, and many leading Bush officials - including Dick Cheney - have admitted to supporting, endorsing or ordering waterboarding. If that's not a "sufficient basis" to "begin" and investigation then what exactly would be?

Failing to investigate, let alone prosecute, obvious and admitted-to crimes delegitimizes all other prosecutions. But contrasted against and combined with prosecuting people for generally shitty conduct and maybe, possibly some actual law-breaking is the mark of a tyrant, a Roman Emperor desperate for the love of his people punishing the disfavored while the loyal, popular or powerful can openly admit to serious crimes with impunity.

I suppose a small degree of this is expected and understandable, but when this becomes the prevailing notion, what we have is an AG (and a country) that is only nominally guided (or governed) by the law.