Jim Hightower

He's done it again! Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, has spewed another gusher of nonsense out of his mouth, which seems to run non-stop. Forget capping the oil well – BP needs to cap Tony's mouth!

His latest whopper was to insist that deep sea life in the Gulf of Mexico would not be devastated by the massive plumes of toxic oil spreading down toward the Gulf floor. Why? Because, Tony blithely asserted, they don't exist. "The oil is on the surface. There aren't any plumes," he cheerfully explained, apparently adrift in another of his see-no-evil fantasies. Nice try, chief, but scientists quickly confirmed that deepwater plumes were already stretching as far as 50 miles from BP's botched well.

Meanwhile, the Center for Public Integrity has revealed that the oil giant's current catastrophic mess should come as no surprise, for it has a long and sorry record of causing calamities. In the last three years, the center says, an astonishing "97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors" came at BP facilities. These included 760 violations rated as "egregious" and "willful." In contrast, the oil company with the second-worst record had only eight such citations.

Hayward, however, doesn't seem to have much respect for numbers, seeming to make them up as he goes along. Here are some, though, that could get his attention. Under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, BP must pay $1,000 for every barrel now spewing into the Gulf – and $3,000 per barrel if the corporation has been grossly negligent. That would put BP's tally at more than $3 billion... and counting.

President Obama says that he's gathering facts on this disaster so he can know "whose [keister] to kick." I'd say that Tony might as well bend over right now.