Just when it seemed Gulf residents couldn’t get any more outraged about the massive oil spill fouling their coastline, word came Saturday that BP’s CEO was taking time off to attend a glitzy yacht race in England.
“It’s disturbing for the simple fact that there’s a problem that needs to be fixed, and he needs to be hands on with it. Our local elected officials, they don’t sleep, they’re up all night — worried. They’re hands on. If there’s a problem, they do everything they can to try to fix it. It seems like the higher executives in our government [at the federal level], with the executives at BP, it looks like they decide to worry about it later. Things need to happen now.”
— Capt. Dwayne Price, a charter fisherman in Grand Isle, La.
BP CEO Tony Hayward took Saturday off to see his 52-foot yacht “Bob” compete in a race around the Isle of Wight off southern England.
The J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race, one of the world’s largest, which attracts more than 1,700 boats and 16,000 sailors as famous yachtsmen compete with wealthy amateurs in a 50-nautical mile course.
Twitter feeds compared Obama and Biden’s golfing to Hayward’s yachting, lumping them together as diversions of privileged people who should be paying more attention to the spill.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden enjoyed a round of golf Saturday near Washington, as they have on other weekends since the spill as reported by users of social networking sites.
Official Site J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race — roundtheisland.org.uk