{"id":798,"date":"2010-06-20T21:55:32","date_gmt":"2010-06-20T21:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html"},"modified":"2010-06-20T21:55:32","modified_gmt":"2010-06-20T21:55:32","slug":"tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html","title":{"rendered":"Tony Hayward: A villain worthy of Tom Wolfe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/06\/20\/us\/20spill.html?scp=6&amp;sq=tony%20hayward&amp;st=cse\">This guy and his company are unbelievable.<\/a> Excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world&#8217;s largest races. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>More:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nOn Saturday, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, called Mr. Hayward&#8217;s yacht outing the &#8220;height of arrogance,&#8221; in an interview with Fox News.<br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"the-howells.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/199\/import\/the-howells.jpg\" width=\"249\" height=\"300\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span><br \/>\n&#8220;I can tell you that yacht ought to be here skimming and cleaning up a lot of the oil,&#8221; Mr. Shelby said. &#8220;He ought to be down here seeing what is really going on. Not in a cocoon somewhere.&#8221; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.2theadvocate.com\/news\/96740354.html\">And:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nHayward had already angered many in the U.S. when he was quoted in the Times of London as suggesting that Americans were particularly likely to file bogus claims for compensation from the spill. He later shocked Louisiana residents by telling them that no one wanted to resolve the crisis as badly as he did because &#8220;I&#8217;d like my life back.&#8221;<br \/>\nRonnie Kennier, a 49-year-old oysterman from Empire, La., said Hayward&#8217;s day among the sailboats showed once again just how out of touch BP executives are with the financial and emotional suffering along the Gulf.<br \/>\n&#8220;He wanted to get his life back,&#8221; Kennier said. &#8220;I guess he got it.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Yet one fine day, in a fit of euphoria, after he had picked up the telephone and taken an order for zero-coupon bonds that had brought him a $50,000 commission, <b>just like that<\/b>, this very phrase had bubbled up in his brain. On Wall Street, he and a few others &#8230; had become precisely that &#8230; Masters of the Universe. There was &#8230; no limit whatsoever. <\/em> &#8212; Tom Wolfe, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bonfire-Vanities-Tom-Wolfe\/dp\/0553275976#noop\">The Bonfire of the Vanities.<\/a><br \/>\nA friend from New Orleans came by to visit this morning and told me that the sense of depression and futility is strong in the city. &#8220;It&#8217;s not like Katrina, when you could at least <i>do<\/i> something &#8212; rebuild a house, something,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Here, there&#8217;s nothing you can do, and that&#8217;s hitting people hard.&#8221;<br \/>\nOh, and guess what? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.2theadvocate.com\/news\/96740619.html\">The relief well they&#8217;re drilling now &#8212; the last hope to stop the oil hemorrhage &#8212; is not guaranteed to work. <\/a> If it doesn&#8217;t, the hole will gush oil into the Gulf for two to four more years before it&#8217;s depleted. Bad luck for Tony! There&#8217;ll be no yachting in the Gulf of Mexico after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This guy and his company are unbelievable. Excerpt: BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world&#8217;s largest races. More: On Saturday, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morals"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tony Hayward: A villain worthy of Tom Wolfe - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tony Hayward: A villain worthy of Tom Wolfe - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This guy and his company are unbelievable. Excerpt: BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world&#8217;s largest races. More: On Saturday, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-20T21:55:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/files\/import\/the-howells.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tony Hayward: A villain worthy of Tom Wolfe - Rod Dreher","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tony Hayward: A villain worthy of Tom Wolfe - Rod Dreher","og_description":"This guy and his company are unbelievable. Excerpt: BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world&#8217;s largest races. More: On Saturday, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html","og_site_name":"Rod Dreher","article_published_time":"2010-06-20T21:55:32+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/files\/import\/the-howells.jpg"}],"author":"Rod Dreher","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html","name":"Tony Hayward: A villain worthy of Tom Wolfe - Rod Dreher","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/files\/import\/the-howells.jpg","datePublished":"2010-06-20T21:55:32+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-20T21:55:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#\/schema\/person\/0eb55fec41ac37c5cdc76396861852db"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/files\/import\/the-howells.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/files\/import\/the-howells.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/06\/tony-hayward-a-villain-worthy-of-tom-wolfe.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tony Hayward: A villain worthy of Tom Wolfe"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/","name":"Rod Dreher","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#\/schema\/person\/0eb55fec41ac37c5cdc76396861852db","name":"Rod Dreher","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e1\/2e1e526772cb318f0168aec327715d02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e1\/2e1e526772cb318f0168aec327715d02x96.jpg","caption":"Rod Dreher"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/author\/rdreher"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}