BP Chairman Tony Hayward was under fire last week when he appeared before Congress for a “less-than-friendly” grilling over the disaster in the Gulf. Lawmakers lit into Hayward like Muhammad Ali used to light into sparring partners back in his day. It was ugly. So instead of going off somewhere quiet to lick his wounds and try to figure out some way out of this BP oil mess, what did Hayward do? He jetted off to England, where his yacht sailed in the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race on Saturday!
“He is having some rare private time with his son,” BP spokeswoman Sheila Williams said in a telephone interview on Saturday, intended to smooth over the poorly timed image. But White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called Mr. Hayward’s attendance at the race “part of a long line of P.R. gaffes and mistakes” that he has made. “To quote Tony Hayward, he’s got his life back,” Emanuel said, referring to when Mr. Hayward said “I’d like my life back,” which struck many in the gulf region as insensitive.
But lawmakers are livid at Mr. Hayward’s yacht outing, calling it the “height of arrogance.” Said Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama: “I can tell you that yacht ought to be here skimming and cleaning up a lot of the oil. He ought to be down here seeing what is really going on. Not in a cocoon somewhere.”
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