Sadly, many of these questions, although being batted around, have no conclusive answers. This morning I watched a piece with George Stephanopoulos and Tony Hayward (the CEO of BP). Two parts of the interview were truly unnerving. First, after the spill, BP asked fisherman it hired to sign waivers of liability. Hayward stated that it was just a form contract and that he was looking into it and that the signing would stop. Second, Hayward refused to take responsibility for the explosion. Hayward said that the explosion and the spill were not BP's responsibility. Well, surely there is some responsibility, here, right Tony? Hayward answered, "the oil." How does that work, Tony Hayward? You have no responsibility for the rig, the workers on the rig, or the going-ons of the rig, but you have responsibility for the oil. I guess that works well when you get to cash in on the black gold.Obama set BP straight by saying, "Let me be clear, BP is responsible for this leak. BP will be paying for the bill." I wonder what Hayward has to say to that. Perhaps people wouldn't be so anti-capitalism if they actually saw some semblance of compassion, remorse, and apologies from CEOs instead of semantics and refusals to accept responsibilities. Perhaps corporate responsibility shouldn't be an oxymoron anymore, especially for BP and Mr. Tony Hayward.
