The first clue that he had no idea what he was talking about was when he called John McCain ‘affable.’ Poor, poor Britain. Their pensions are losing value because they’re all invested in BP. You want to know what’s repellent, Mr. Wheatcroft? The stinking sludge your favorite megacorporation is spewing into our wetlands and onto our beaches. You want to know what else is repellent? BP’s record of safety. I don’t blame you for opposing American foreign policies. I disagree with them, too. But to cry about our president saying mean things about BP while our entire Gulf Coast is being destroyed is the height of self-serving insensitivity.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
What’s even more repellent than the linked screed is the attitude of most of the English press. One day this week at least four of the major papers had headlines with some variant of “Obama is saying bad things about BP! Stick up for England Mr. Cameron!”
Made me wonder if they had England vs. U.S. in the world cup on the brain, cause they’ve tried to frame this story as some Britain vs. the U.S. game.
Further evidence of how much on their brains this story has become, when Robert Green Bill Bucknered the ball into England’s goal, the Guardian ran a headline which read, “America Enjoys English Spill.”
If only BP’s were so laughable.
Or, why we were fortunate that Bush couldn’t privatize social security.
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Oil wells unite and divide … Winston Churchill subsidized the Anglo Persian Oil Company [later BP].
Cameron visits troops in Afghanistan: “This mission in two words. It is about national security.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."They are free to pull their troops home. As a matter of fact, I highly suggest it.
stuff like article that is what BP’s new PR plan is paying for. Poor Britain and BP, pour, pour, pour little oil company…
And we did not prevent them from taking dangerous risks. Therefore, we should pay. The logic is compelling in a kinda of Kafka meets juvenile court kinda of way.
I blame society!
Ewww. You made me click on a Daily Mail article. Didn’t read it, as that paper is pure trash, but I did just send off an email to the Sunday Times, whose political editor wrote this today:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7149085.ece
Jake Tapper of ABC searched in vain to find a reference where Obama “referred pointedly to BP as “British Petroleum”.
The British press is terrible. I wish more Americans would realize this and stop quoting it, either to bolster their own argument or to draw attention to it.
is really over the top. I have no love for BP – but if it goes bust the impact on England, and by extension an already foundering European Union, will be huge. In this global economy what’s bad for the EU’s economy is bad for ours.
This gusher could destroy us all. Estimates are that 100 million gallons may have already entered the Gulf. 100,000,000 fucking gallons.
This in NOT Obama’s “Katrina”. But it IS his “helicopters colliding in the desert”. That incident wasn’t Jimmy Carter’s fault any more than the oil disaster is Obama’s. But it highlighted Carter’s helplessness in the face of a crisis.
If we can’t cap this leak the effect on Obama’s presidency will be the least of our problems – the impact on our nation could be incalculable.
BP=”big pussies”, and I don’t mean the good kind.
“waaaaah, why do you hate Britain?”
Is this gonna get ANY traction? It’s laughable on its face!
The British press has made anti-europeanism into an art form. Now they are thrashing the US or at least Obama as well. Pretty soon the UK will stand alone in the world. And since when is “what’s good for BP” good for us all, whether British, European, or American?
This old fart seems to be some kind of gossip columnist of the royalty-licker kind so beloved in Old Blighty. It’s no wonder he can’t distinguish real events from imagined snits among “high society”. He’ll serve as a welcome balance should Masterpiece Classic or some production of King Lear threaten to induce excessive appreciation for British intellectual achievement.