We're All Tony Hayward

The latest in BP's long line of PR gaffes since the start of the Gulf oil spill comes courtesy of, who else, their chief executive Tony Hayward, who apparently took a vacation from the spill zone today by watching one of his yachts compete in a race in England.

This is obviously galling to the average American for a couple of reasons. First, it seems outrageous that an individual as utterly irresponsible and incompetent as Hayward can live a lifestyle so much more luxurious than any that we will come close to experiencing. Also, it is utterly inappropriate for Hayward to be taking a break from the spill to indulge in his chosen lifestyle while hundreds of thousands of individuals along the Gulf Coast are trapped in a situation that has made their traditional lifestyles impossible.

Yet as wrong as Hayward may be to watch yachts race while oil gushes into the Gulf, most Americans are just like him. By that I mean we are continuing to live our typical lifestyles without any regard for how we are complicit in the worst environmental disaster in American history.

I know this because when I filled up my gas tank today, the station around me was packed. We were all there to get a product that is obtained through highly risky methods that can lead to epic disasters such as the Gulf spill, but no one seemed particularly concerned about that today. Rather, we were just trying to fill up so that we could get to graduation parties, river houses, grocery stores, or wherever else our carefree Saturday routines took us. No one was picketing the gas station with signs demanding that Congress pass legislation to put a price on carbon, and people obviously hadn't stayed home in protest of our dependence on such a dirty source of energy. Sure, none of us filling our tanks were CEO of the company at fault for the Gulf spill, but we were all citizens of the nation that is ultimately responsible for the catastrophe. Until we can muster the strength to alter our own comfortable routines, how can we possibly criticize Tony Hayward for his reluctance to do the same?