BP Attempts to Plug the Truth

BP has been fighting two simultaneous battles for 50 days. Their desperate fight to put a “plug” on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is evident. However, little progress has come from the British company’s bold efforts to put a “plug” on the truth, to systematically deny the evidence, distance the media, mobilize its political influences and enlist top experts in the dubious art of manipulating public opinion.

BP began contracting the services of the Brunswick Group, one of the most powerful offices in Washington, specializing in “challenges from the critics.” A week ago, BP directly appointed Anne Womack-Kolton, former campaign manager of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s campaign. Just this week, former Bush strategist Alex Castellanos, adds himself to the list through the company Purple Strategies.

In a show of brazenness or sarcasm, BP seems ready to round up the “usual suspects” to undo the damages to which they so generously contributed when Bush and Cheney bowed down before the oil companies. However, the oil spill, of course, also splashes the Democrats as the sticky tentacles of BP knock on the door of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the former head of Obama’s transition team; John Podesta, and even the deceased Ted Kennedy (to mention a few).

BP fights back by any means possible in trying to remake its image, from Facebook to Twitter, where it appears as an irrational “defendant.” The British company has also placed its “sponsored link” at the top of the page on Google searches whenever the damned words “oil spill” are keyed. On television and in every newspaper page, we see controversial executive director Tony Hayward actively and passively apologizing: “The gulf spill is a tragedy that never should have happened … I am deeply sorry.”

However, the most lamentable part, without a doubt, is BP’s persistence in trying to make the disaster “invisible.” We were able to verify it with our own eyes several times during the first days when we ran into the yellow tape — just like the kind police use to mark out the “scene of the crime” — to block us from access to the beaches, Shell Beach and Grand Isle, among others. One week after the spill, we verified that BP demanded that the fishermen be prohibited to “speak with the media” as a condition of their joining in the “response” operation. The fishermen of Venice cautioned that the Coast Guard even went as far as to threaten significant fines if they dared to take journalists to the area of the spill.

Shortly afterwards, security guards of another oil company — Shell — shut the door in our faces when we tried to access, at an inconvenient time, a press conference at the fort near Robert [Louisiana] (can someone explain to us why they would put the information center 200 kilometers off the coast?). Less than two weeks ago, we attended the pathetic choreography with which BP entertained Obama, who gave his own press conference on Grand Isle less than 500 meters from the headquarters of Exxon Mobil in the Gulf of Mexico (we’re surrounded!).

The Associate Press, CBS and the Times-Picayune denounced BP’s recent efforts to block access to media, though the smoke screen could not have lasted much longer. The horrifying photos of the pelicans smeared on Grand Terre Island ended the unwritten slogan that has worked almost to perfection to date: “No photos of dead animal, please.”

The existence of underwater oil plumes is finally now confirmed, 10 days after the ubiquitous Tony Hayward put his hand in the water before the press: “The oil is on the surface … Oil has a specific gravity that’s about half that of water. It wants to get to the surface because of the difference in specific gravity.”

Elementary, my dear Hayward … We will continue to deceive.