PrintJune 5, 2010
Advice to BP: Shrug
Obama and his team of thugs are dressed out in heavy boots aimed at BP's neck. Apparently, oil booms and actionable emergency plans are in short supply in the government, but the Obama administration is buried under a glut of hard heels in a variety of men's and women's sizes. And they're all ready to stomp on BP's jugular.
Adding to BP's public relations woes are some of Hollywood's film geniuses, probably armed with decades of deep-water drilling experience, only too happy to dismiss the exhausted and skilled BP repair staff as a bunch of morons. My advice to the BP board of directors is that they simply accept the third-party assessments of their qualifications and tell Obama, his government, and his media acolytes that the time has come for them to take charge of capping the Deepwater Horizon riser.
Surely, Ken Salazar and Carol Browner in starring roles, with James Cameron directing, can plumb their vast engineering talents and instantly summon a crack remote operating vehicle team to "plug that damn hole." As the BP CEO suggested, maybe it's time for BP workers to take their lives back.
In the midst of this major ecological calamity, when BP can least cope with major distractions and vile recriminations, Obama's clueless legal team has decided to threaten the company with a criminal probe. Tone-deaf Eric Holder is unable to pronounce the words "Islamic terrorist," but he has already unleashed his justice department to cripple BP, essentially labeling it a criminal enterprise. Perhaps Obama and his band of goons need to hear from BP that they are stopping all capping efforts to concentrate on their legal defense.
As a BP shareholder, I wouldn't be upset. Rather, I'd applaud BP's actions and even buy more stock with full knowledge that its declaration of bankruptcy is all but guaranteed. It's already rumored that some of BP's valuable drilling assets in Alaska might have to be sold off to pay for the Gulf cleanup.
It's a brilliant idea to sell those assets as quickly as possible. The environmental hit teams have no intention of letting anyone, anywhere, drill in the U.S. ever again. Not in Alaska, not in the Rockies, not in shallow water, and certainly not in deep water. Only the Brazilians and the Norwegians and the Mexicans, and the Chinese and the Indians and the British and the Angolans -- only everyone else will be allowed to do that.
Clearly, BP is far from blameless. Eleven men were killed on its rig, and much of the Louisiana coast is defiled. But the payment of just, measured compensatory damages is not Obama's goal. He will not let this environmental crisis go to waste. To distract the growing numbers of Americans who are beginning to take full measure at last of his colossal incompetence, negligence, narcissism, laziness, ignorance, and stupidity, only BP's slow and total destruction will suffice. If he can permanently disable the domestic oil industry at the same time, so much the better.
BP must accept the reality that it is not GM. BO has no vast democrat union base of employees that must be protected at all costs and no mass vote-generating machine to deliver for Obama. They are expendable. They are not even GE, in complete control of a sycophantic media outlet always ready to sing the praises of Obama on broadcast and cable outlets, all day and all night.
BP might become Government Petroleum soon enough if they don't act quickly. They should offer to sell off their expertise and assets to the Chinese, who at least will appreciate them and use them aggressively. While China's state-owned oil exploration company, CNOOC, was denied the prize of Unocal in 2005, the United States is in a much weaker economic, military, and political position today with respect to China. Surely a BP sale would breeze through a regulatory review in today's climate.
Assured access to a plentiful, long-term oil supply is the chief foreign policy concern of China. And BP could revel soon in the irony of drilling again in deep Gulf waters -- only this time for the Chinese off the coast of Cuba.
I hope BP has learned the hard lesson that you can never pay sufficient tribute to fascistic leaders to buy enduring protection. Of course, tribute is a necessary component of crony capitalism, but merely claiming in green-friendly ads to be "beyond petroleum" and delivering millions to democrat coffers does not put you beyond retribution.
Perhaps no commercial entities are more despised by modern liberals than oil companies. Yet no industry delivers products more essential to modern life. No matter how many dead, oil-stained birds are pornographically paraded in front of us, I haven't heard of one liberal who has sworn off his oil-sustained lifestyle.
Not one Hollywood liberal has pledged never to fly again in his fuel-laden private jet. Obama has not idled his Air Force One fleet. Al Gore has not shuttered his new carbon-consuming Santa Barbara manse.
If, contrary to my advice, BP decides to labor on to fix the problem they likely caused, I hope they do so in hallowed memory of the men who died on their rig (and in their refineries) performing the dangerous work few of us appreciate as required to power our civilization.
And BP should be inspired by honest and principled politicians like Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who, while horrified at the spectacle of littoral catastrophe, also recognizes that his state cannot survive without the crucial industry BP represents.
Claude can be reached at csandroff@gmail.com.
