Barack Obama finding out 'whose ass to kick' over oil spill | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama finding out 'whose ass to kick' over oil spill
US president defends his handling of Gulf oil spill, telling NBC he would have already sacked BP chief Tony Hayward.
Adam Gabbatt
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 June 2010
The chief executive of BP is already coping with the worst oil spill in US history and a clean-up operation approaching $1bn, but the worst may be yet to come: US president Barack Obama is on a factfinding mission in an attempt to discover "whose ass to kick".
Interviewed on US television yesterday, Obama also suggested that if Tony Hayward had been working for him, the BP figurehead would have been relieved of his duties by now.
The president was appearing on NBC's Today Show in an apparent attempt to show active engagement in dealing with the Gulf oil spill, while distancing the US government from responsibility for the leak. Polls have shown mostAmericans believe Obama has handled the crisis poorly.
Hayward's past comments include: "I want my life back"; asserting that the Gulf was "a very big ocean"; and that "the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest",.
The president was unequivocal when asked about such comments by the show host, Matt Lauer, saying: "He wouldn't be working for me after any of those statements."
The interview, snippets of which were released last night by NBC, is due to air in the US later today.
The president defended his talks with Gulf fishermen and oil spill experts, saying their purpose was not academic – rather, they were an exercise in asserting where the presidential boot should be administered, "so I know whose ass to kick".
Yesterday, Obama met with Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen and the president's cabinet for a briefing on the oil spill, which began with the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers.
After the meeting, Obama sought to reassure the nation that the Gulf coast would "bounce back" from the spill, but not without time, effort and reimbursement from BP.
In the NBC interview, Obama strongly defended his role in dealing with the crisis, including his three visits to the region since the spill began.
"I was down there a month ago before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf," Obama said, adding he has talked to a variety of "experts" on the oil spill, as well as the fishermen.
"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick," the president said.
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