BP's Tony Hayward: Clueless or Careless?

BP CEO Tony Hayward has gone from being a little known CEO to a household name made infamous by the Deepwater Horizon disaster that has led to 70,000 to 90,000 barrels of oil, according to a new analysis, pouring into the Gulf daily, for over a month. At 42 gallons per barrel, that's an astonishing 2.94 to 3.78 million gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf every day. Ever since the incident, Hayward has provided the public with a goldmine of quotes and misleading information. Possibly the most famous instance of poor propriety was when Hayward, while apologizing to the people of Louisiana, told them "I would like my life back", a comment that sounded particularly insensitive after the Gulf catastrophe claimed 11 lives in the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Further casualties now include nearly 500 birds, 227 turtles, and 27 mammals, including dolphins. Hayward's poorly-conceived statements do not stop there; he also famously said, "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

Hayward is also expounding scientifically disproved information, denying the existence of underwater oil plumes. When asked about the plumes of oil, Hayward said, "The oil is on the surface ... there aren't any plumes." This comment was made at almost the same time that a New York Times article reported several scientists had found giant plumes of oil underwater. Another oil plume has been discovered recently by the University of South Florida. Neither BP nor Hayward have commented on this finding.