Monday, May 31, 2010

“I would like my life back”

Now doubt the same sentiment is echoed by the birds, sea turtles, and fish killed by the largest oil spill in history. Not to mention the people whose livelihoods are wrecked, or will be, by the spill.

But here’s what Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, said recently about the spill:

The first thing to say is I'm sorry," Tony Hayward said when asked what he would tell people in Louisiana, where heavy oil has already reached parts of the state's southeastern marshes.

"We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Evidence is mounting that the accident was not “just one of those things” as Rand Paul and others would have you believe:

WASHINGTON — Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week.

The problems involved the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster on the rig.

The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.

But it decided to press on, of course, because to do otherwise would be, well, just too gosh darn expensive.

If there was any justice, Tony Hayward and the rest of the freebooters who visited this disaster on us would not be getting their lives back; they’d be spending the rest of their natural days cleaning oil off of rocks and sifting it out of sand. Or maybe they could fall on their swords — in a public ceremony — at the end of a pier in Louisiana somewhere.

But there won’t be justice, of course, not in any meaningful measure, anyway. So, in time Hayward and his merry band of privateers will go on the the next disaster-in-the-making. They’ll pretend to be chastened for a while, but it’s already apparent who guys like Hayward are really concerned about.

A thump of the tail to the Dependable Renegade for the link.

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