Clive Crook is a Washington-based British journalist who is none too fond of the way President Obama has handled the oil disaster. But he is advising his countrymen to shut up their whining whinging about how mean angry Americans are supposedly being to that fine British company. Crook says, sensibly:

A US media frenzy is a disgusting thing to watch. Even so, in all this I have no sympathy for either BP or for those in Britain – such as Boris Johnson, London’s mayor – who are complaining about a surge in anti-British rhetoric. That kind of whining does not play well in the US. If you want a real backlash against the UK, keep that up.

Imagine that Exxon Mobil had spent weeks dumping 30,000 barrels of oil a day (the newest estimate, double the previous one: seven Exxon Valdez spills so far and counting) on the British shoreline, with no end yet in sight. This does not do justice to the gravity of the emergency in the US, by the way, since the coastline in question is especially sensitive both in environmental and in economic terms.
Imagine that the company had dithered, dissembled and obfuscated from the outset. Imagine its chief executive had said the environmental impact would be small, and that he and his company – they are American, they know what they are doing – would take care of it. Might there be just a little anti-Exxon, and anti-American, feeling? Well, the idea is unthinkable.
The British press points out that BP has a dominant position in the stock market and that pensioners depend on its dividends. What is one to conclude? The bigger the company, the smaller its obligation to make good the damage it has done? Those pensioners own a company that has caused the biggest environmental disaster the US has ever experienced. Someone must bear the costs of this calamity, which will run into billions of dollars. Is it the innocent victims who should pay rather than the company’s owners – who, being pensioners, should be excused? The notion is not just indefensible, it is laughable.

Very true. I would love for the Mayor of London to put in a call to the Mayor of Grand Isle — a man whose town is being economically, environmentally and culturally destroyed by BP’s folly — and instruct the chap to mind his manners, because there are British stockholders whose interests are damaged by all this anti-BP naysaying. Those coonasses would be all over the loudmouth BoJo, who certainly deserves it.
UPDATE: Put Mayor Camardelle on Obama’s Expert Panel!