Obama and Tony Hayward

It's shocking that Barack "I'm fully engaged" Obama has not talked to BP CEO Tony Hayward since the crisis in the Gulf began. NOT ONCE.

Obama's running around looking for "whose ass to kick" and he hasn't spent 30 seconds talking to Hayward? That is insane.

FIFTY DAYS and Obama has never spoken to Hayward.

That's not "fully engaged."

Obama claims that there was no need to talk to him.

WHAT?

Video.


Transcript

MATT LAUER: Have you spoken directly to Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP?

OBAMA: I have not spoken to him directly, and here's the reason: Because my experience is when you talk to, uh, uh, a guy like a BP CEO, he's gonna say all the right things to me. I'm not interested in words. I'm interested in actions, and, and we are communicating to him every single day exactly what we expect of him, and what we expect of that administration.

LAUER: In all due respect, that feels strange to me, that here we've got the CEO of a company that's responsible for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And I think I'm just curious why you didn't pick up, why you wouldn't pick up the phone and in some ways just give him a piece of your mind.

OBAMA: Well, uh, the, uh, look, this has sort of been, this has been the main critique of the administration -- is giving a piece of my mind to these guys. Look, I would love to vent. I, I would love to, to just shout and holler because I'm thinking about this day in and day out. But my main job is to solve the problem.

Oh, God.

Unbelievable.

I give Lauer credit for challenging Obama a bit, but eventually he let him off the hook.

I don't think Obama should have picked up the phone to "shout and holler" at Hayward, but I do think Obama should have spoken directly to him sometime in the past 50 days.

It was very awkward the way Obama fumbled as he first addressed the question. Then it was very sleazy and slick of Obama to shift the point the way he did. Suddenly, Obama was talking about why he chose not to lose his temper, equating that with not speaking to Hayward. He ignored the issue of the strangeness of not talking to Hayward at all. Certainly, a few words shared in a constructive manner were in order.

The fact is Obama is making up excuses for the inexcusable. The "I'm fully engaged" stuff is a crock.

Obama can't handle a crisis.