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June 17, 2010 11:12 PM UTC

Diana DeGette Beats the Holy Hell out of Tony Hayward

  • 53 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Did we know Diana DeGette had this in her? Wow–a few minutes of setup, then she shreds him:

Comments

53 thoughts on “Diana DeGette Beats the Holy Hell out of Tony Hayward

    1. Any other CEO of a company that lost 45 percent of its market cap, regardless of the reason, would have been sacked by now.

      If you like him, hire him.  He’ll probably be entering the job market sometime soon.

    2. It comes from the highest levels in any organization.  The problem is, the CEO demands results, and from the sound of his testimony, had no clue what the ramifications of his directives would have. Or worse, didn’t care.

    3. Well that’s good because according to him none of it rests on his shoulders.  Oh, he’s sorry and willing to take responsibility in a touchy feely kind of way but on every detail, he knew nothing.  He wasn’t responsible. It’s like he thinks taking responsibility means sending a Hallmark card.  He richly deserves the beating he’s taking.  He’s the CEO.  He should have some of the answers.  No doubt he does.  He was sent a detailed heads up on the main areas of the coming questioning in advance.  He clearly knows nothing in the lawyerly sense and is apologetic only in the PR ad sense.  

        1. You must be kidding! Obama has said, “I take full responsibility for the governments response.” He has made it a top priority. Do you even know the meaning of the word “essentially”?

          You must be able to do better than that.

          1. .

            neither one actually has.

            In fact, from your post, I might get the idea that Obama accepts responsibility for seeing that the cleanup is done right, from this point forward, now that he has woken up, but not for the regulatory lapses leading up to the mess ?

            NOTE:  I don’t mean there’s an equivalency; the culpability of BP is orders of magnitude greater than MMS’s.  

            The Government failed because of some crooks at the lower levels.  Even the best management, which Salazar did not exercise, but even if he had, you can’t anticipate criminal conduct by your employees.

            With in BP, cutting corners is part of the corporate culture.  

            Big diff.

            .

            1. put Obama’s and Salazar’s behavior in the same category as BP CEO Tony Hayward’s even according to you, Barron. That’s all I was saying.  

    1. puts it in a nice greedy perspective.  Hayward seemed to hold up well though considering the grilling he gets.

      Sometimes I get disappointed with all this theater though.  Once all the chastizing is done and the circus is over, we pack up, turn the lighs off, and Congress moves on to the next bright, shiny object.  Short attention span theater, and BP is aware of that.

      /cynicism off

  1. DemRapidResponse has a new add relating to yesterdays GOP “apology” to BP…

    I wonder if the GOP will be refunding the Millions BP has already paid them?

    or donate to the Gulf Victims of this Oil Disaster?

    I doubt it.

    1. Whose brilliant idea was that?

      The GOP apologizes to British Petroleum… but I imagine it’ll be a cold day in hell before the average Iraqi gets so much as a “my bad” from ’em.

      1. apologized to BP for the Omama “shakedown” this Very morning.

        Then tried to retract this afternoon but never fully repeated what he was retracting.

        1. the shoe is on the other foot.  Remember all those years Dems were asked to denounce something some lefty said every other day?  It’s being reported that dozens of Rs are doing to the denouncing now.  You’d almost think the guy was taking money from the DNC.

          Yesterday’s story: The public not happy with Obama speech and don’t think he’s tough enough on BP.  This guy apologizing to his paymasters for the fuss we’re making over the destruction they so casually visited upon us is the story now. Not only that but there was no bullying involved.  BP was completely willing to comply.  They’d kind of like to placate the pitchfork and torch crowd a little.  

  2. .

    ask a question; ignore the answer.

    she’s playing to the cameras.

    Did BP do wrong ? Indubitably.  Did Congresswoman DeGette elicit any new information from BP ?  Not one scrap.

    .

    1. He demonstrated that BP cared more about cost containment than safety.  

      I could watch this all day long.  It was so good I called her office to say so.

        1. Hayward’s lack of knowledge or concern over the contents of the memos demonstrate the memos were just another day at the spill, I mean mill.

        2. Let’s cut through the bullshit posturing here.

          You’re siding with Big Oil over Real People in the battle to clean up Big Oil’s mistakes?

          That’s sure what it sounds like.

          Not a very free-market approach if you ask me.  You fuck up, you pay the price.  That’s free-market.

          1. .

            at the risk of hurting my cred with my brother and sister Constitutionalists,

            I want BP to be held to account.  It’s the socialist in me.  

            BP was reckless, and they are going to get away with socializing the risks attendant on deep water drilling.   They are not long for this world; they will go into receivership in the near term.  That $20 Billion slush fund will never be fully funded.  

            The free market, as it operates today, does not quantify or charge for all of the costs that any economic activity entails.  Polluting the air, for example, mostly goes unnoticed, and certainly unregulated.  Consider that jalopy you drove past this morning, spewing half-burnt fuel out the tailpipe.  

            I cannot fathom where you get the notion that any enterprise that fouls our environment is forced to face the consequences and pay for damage caused.  Exxon got off nearly Scot-free (if you’ll pardon the ethnic slur) for spilling one day’s worth of the current BP oil geyser into Prince William Sound.

            I don’t think the free market operates the way you think it does.  

            …..

            my point here, obviously not made very well, is that blustery posturing in a Congressional hearing doesn’t fix anything.  

            By berating the wayward Tony, she gave him an excuse to just clam up.  The way Waxman and Markey (the other one) question folks, they sometimes elicit meaningful responses.

            .

                1. But I watched most of the rest of the hearing.

                  Tony Boy was stonewalling the whole time.  His lawyers trained him well.

                  He’s the poster boy for what’s wrong with tort reform.

            1. The decision to clam up was made before the first question was asked.  He was given an outline of the line of questioning he could expect  including many specifics he would be asked to address.  It was no doubt BP lawyers, not DeGette, who made sure he clammed up immediately after issuing the “I feel your pain”  non-responsible responsibility apology.  

              The memos speak for themselves. So does BP’s atrocious record on violations compared to every other oil company.  Congress is doing its job by getting all that into the congressional record and into the hearing of the public who might never otherwise guess, no matter how angry they may be, just how stone cold these people really are.

              Of course a bi-product is exposing just how lax oversight and enforcement have been but pointing that out is a great argument against the culture of let them do whatever they want, created over many years but achieving its zenith under Cheney and for which the GOP has fought tooth and nail.

              The relentless jingoistic saber rattling of the right during the Bush years made things tough for Dems, always perceived as weaker on military matters. Now it’s Rs, staunch friends of everything Big Oil, in a bind.  

    2. BP is trying to sound contrite and concerned, but when pressed to state the obvious — that they should’ve done, but never did, the test experts say is a must — Hayward fell back on “we’ll have to see what the investigation finds.” So I think it’s useful to see that his apologies are just platitudes, and that despite ponying up the $20 billion, Hayward is still sticking by his “I won’t admit anything specific actually was done wrong” BS.

      1. .

        Some low-level first-line supervisor sends an email that seems to amount to an admission of guilt.  Do we hold the CEO responsible ?  It depends.

        If the low-level guy is in MMS, Obama is not held responsible even for things we saw him do (or not do,) such as his lax oversight of Ken Salazar.  

        On the other hand, if the low-level guy works for BP, crucify Tony Wayward.

        ………….

        Could somebody please link to the video of DeGette grilling Salazar or the President in this fashion ?  I seem to have missed it.

        .

          1. .

            you say leaders have no responsibility for the failures of those under them ?  What is leadership for, if not to prevent screw-ups ?

            If they have no responsibilities, why don’t we replace them with actual leaders ?

            .

  3. I first met Diana 30 years ago when she was debating at Colorado College and I at the University of Southern Colorado. She was a top-notch debater and qualified for the National Debate Tournament with her partner, John Shoskey. She was a great cross-examiner, which shows through in this clip.

    1. People like Barron would view her as soft on BP is she didn’t take a strong stance (like they’re trying to do with Obama and Salazar), while at the same time, crucify her for her strong and aggresive questioning.

      The mind of the religeous right is an interesting one, but not one I would model for my children.

    1. DeGette absolutely rocked. My biggest impression at the end was that DeGette was clearly more qualified to run BP than Tony “clueless” Hayward. BP has to fire this guy because he comes across as knowing nothing about what his company is doing and incapable of figuring it out.

      She toasted him.

  4. If they have been running those tests and using the better systems on their other deep water wells. That would have really fucked Hayward.

    If he said yes, then why not this well.

    If he said no, then ask if we can expect other explosions.

    1. I was about to make this same comment. When DeGette started with a question about the 100 or so other wells, I thought this was the question she was working up to: If you were so ignorant about this well, what do you know about the other 100 wells? Are they equally shoddy? How do we know? What are you doing about it?

      I loved her grilling, but she left this opportunity on the table.  

  5. .

    Haliburton was on the rig shortly before it blew up.  They might have some liability here.

    DeGette appears to have been reading from a script provided by Haliburton, which was intended to show that all the blame rests on BP, and none with them.  

    Me, I don’t know how the liability breaks down between the two companies.  I think it warrants investigation.  But Congresswoman DeGette, for whatever reason, appears to have sided with one of the parties against another of the parties, based on evidence provided by only one of those 2 parties.

    Is that proper conduct for a member of the legislature who is purportedly doing its own investigation/ hearing ?

    .

    1. Other companies work under contract or sub-contract for them (or Transocean, etc.).  

      BP can (and will) try to sue Halliburton, Cameron, Transocean and everyone else its lawyers can dream up that might be partly to blame.  It is truly an attorneys wet dream.  

        1. And what’s wrong with the whole concept of “tort reform.”

          This is only going to end up in the courts because somebody fucked up.

          You want to fuck the lawyers?  Don’t fuck up.  Stay the hell out of court to begin with.

          It’s pretty simple, actually.

    2. Halliburton had recently completed cementing the casing that blew out.  I think the tool pusher himself, who replaced the weighted mud with sea water, was a Transocean employee.

      But decisions about for how and when to proceed, including overruling the contractor recommendations for how to set and cement the casing, were allegedly made by a BP “company man” on the rig.  See, for example:

      http://online.wsj.com/article/

      For now, BP has agreed to pay (in part because its “brand” has been damaged).  It will then turn around and sue the other PRPs to recover its money. This will be in court longer than I will be alive.  

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