It struck an odd chord last week when President Barack Obama took time out of his busy schedule of fundraising, vacationing and theater-going and visited the Gulf Coast to see for himself the oil catastrophe. What was strange wasn’t that the President showed up (he had to, his image was taking a hit), or that he was critical of BP’s effort to contain and cleanup the oil. It was that he took the opportunity to blast BP for launching a public relations campaign and pay dividends to their shareholders.
“President Obama Sharply Criticized BP On Friday, Saying The Company Should Not Waste Millions Of Dollars On Television Advertising And Dividend Payments When The Money Would Be Better Spent On People Suffering From The Spill.” (Peter Nicholas and Margot Roosevelt, “Gulf Oil Spill: In Louisina, Obama Criticizes BP Advertising And Dividend Payments,” Los Angeles Times’ Greenspace Blog, 6/4/10)
Obama: “My understanding is that BP had contracted for $50 million worth of TV advertising to manage their image in the course of this disaster.” (Peter Nicholas and Margot Roosevelt, “Gulf Oil Spill: In Louisina, Obama Criticizes BP Advertising And Dividend Payments,” Los Angeles Times’ Greenspace Blog, 6/4/10)
Let’s just get this right out of the way first: shareholders have invested their money and are entitled to their dividends. Talk of withholding that money for other purposes smacks of redistributionist advocacy, regardless of how well intentioned the aims may be.
Okay now on to what is really important here. Obama’s criticism of BP’s public relations effort is nothing short of propaganda hypocrisy. You see, it serves at least two very important purposes when BP spends millions managing its image. First and foremost, BP is trying to save itself. Second, by saving its business, BP can continue to pay for cleanup efforts and for claims filed by those whose livelihoods have been ruined. So what is it exactly that is wrong with that?
The problem here is that Obama has been travelling around the country – at taxpayer expense – to promote ObamaCare. Obama’s signature legislation has an image problem that is just about as bad as BP’s. According to the “latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% now favor repeal of the bill while 35% are opposed to repeal.”
So in other words, BP is an evil Big Oil company that shouldn’t spend money to repair its tarnished image, but it’s perfectly right and just to travel around the country spending taxpayer money trying to repair ObamaCare’s tarnished image? Oh, and Obama is also doing this while BP is trying to contain and cleanup oil.
Is something is wrong with this picture or is it just me?
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