BP's CEO Isn't Fired Yet? Really?

BP CEO Tony Hayward wrote an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal in which he advocated that the oil industry improve its technology and change its practices. Sure, sounds great, Tony. But Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post has just one question: Why do you still have a job? “At this point, how can anyone believe a word the man says,” he writes. “If he told me my mother loves me, I'd want a second source.”

Hayward has been a non-stop source of bogus optimism and gaffes. (More details on that front in today's New York Times.) “I'd like my life back,” he complained on Sunday, which must have sounded very sympathetic to the fishermen he put out of work who aren't multimillionaires. Hours later, he called the containment operation “very successful,” even though it's been nothing remotely resembling that, and every measure he's expressed confidence in has failed miserably. Did we mention BP's stock has lost a third of its value? “Somebody, please, give the man his life back,” pleads Robinson.