Project Katrina

In an ongoing struggle to save what is left of its brand equality, BP has launched numerous efforts to revamp its image as “part of the community.” Now, the “embattled oil giant” has “stepped forward to pay” for the annual July Fourth fireworks display in Durango, CO. BP Agreed to pay for the display five months before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP is pitching the display as a community donation:

The display typically costs $15,000 and city officials were poised to cancel it because of a budget crunch. But representatives of BP’s office in southwestern Colorado surprised the council by announcing the company would pick up the tab.

Company spokesman Curtis Thomas says BP knows how important the celebration is to the community and didn’t want it to be lost. He says BP hasn’t asked for any advertising in exchange for its donation.

I just don’t think BP is going to be able to “buy” their way out of this. But I could be wrong (lets hope not).

According to the Houston Chronicle BP saved $5 million by taking shortcuts while drilling the Macondo/Deepwater Horizon well. BP stock has lost $80 billion. $20 billion placed into an escrow for damages. $2.5 billion in clean up costs to date. Solid business decision there BP.

Ouch, this has got to hurt. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reveals just how low the company’s favorability ratings have plummeted—below O.J. Simpson’s and approaching those of individuals our nation has gone to war against:

Indeed, the poll shows that only 6 percent have a favorable rating of BP. In the history of the NBC News/Journal poll, Saddam Hussein (3 percent), Fidel Castro (3 percent) and Yasser Arafat (4 percent) have had lower favorable scores, and O.J. Simpson (11 percent) and tobacco-maker Philip Morris (15 percent) have had higher ratings.

Kind of hard to believe with facts at their fingertips that Republicans are still sticking up for them.

The government has released a new estimate of the amount of oil being spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. The new estimate is 35k to 60k barrels a day, a 50 percent increase on the high end of the range.

House Minority Leader John Boehner on This Week yesterday said he’s now in favor of lifting the cap on BP’s liability in the Gulf oil spill gusher. Though currently law makes BP responsible for cleaning up the actual oil itself, the same law limits its liability to $75 million. Senate Democrats have pushed to raise the cap to $10 billion or get rid of the cap entirely. Boehner now seems to be suggesting he’s on board.

Writing in the Toronto Star, David Olive takes apart TonyHayward:

The biggest oil spill in U.S. history quickly found, in the one person of Tony Hayward, its Michael “Brownie” Brown, hapless head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. And its delusional Baghdad Bob, the Saddam spokesman who coalition forces would never take the capital even as American tanks were visible a few thousand yards from where BB stood.

In response to countless media reports that BP has been blocking journalists from covering the oil spill and speaking with clean-up workers, BP CEO Doug Suttles issued a letter last week saying that such reports were “untrue” and reporters can and do have full access:

Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the cleanup operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply untrue. BP fully supports and defends all individuals rights to share their personal thoughts and experiences with journalists if they so choose.

BP has not and will not prevent anyone working in the cleanup operation from sharing his or her own experiences or opinions.

However, this just isn’t true. Not even close. This is reinforced yet again when on Friday, WDSU, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans got to Grand Isle, Louisiana. Private security officials confronted the reporter and said he couldn’t even have access to the public beach. Here is the mind-numbing exchange:

OFFICIAL 1: Every single security guard here has given the instructions to every single news crew that you can be outside of 100 yards of the workers or along the boom.

WALKER: And who’s saying that? Because no one can tell me that, unless you’re the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, you’re the Coast Guard, or you’re the military, can you tell me where to go on this public beach.

OFFICIAL 1: I can tell you where to go because I’m employed to keep this beach safe. And right now, those are my instructions. I’d like to keep the workers safe as well.

WALKER: I’m going to try to talk to the worker under the tent. Can I do that?

OFFICIAL 1: No, no.

WALKER: He’s on break.

OFFICIAL 1: You are not allowed to interview any workers.

WALKER: The workers can talk to the media, according to the BP CEO two days ago. Still hasn’t trickled down to you all?

OFFICIAL 2: We already heard that one too.

WALKER: What do you mean you’ve “heard that one”? It’s true.

OFFICIAL 1: The e-mail did not explicitly give you permission to do that.

Exactly how much longer is this shit going to keep going on before it stops? I mean when exactly can a private security guard tell anybody, much less a local reporter, that they can’t have access to a public beach.

It is kind of hard to turn on MSNBC and not see Steve McMahon, Democratic consultant telling me as a liberal what I should be thinking about this or that. I could never put my finger on it, but the dude always seem like a total asshole. Now I know why I always felt that way.

[BP] declined to say how much it is spending on the [advertising] effort. It has suspended all of its regular corporate advertising, and is using its ad budget to address the oil spill and the resulting environmental crisis. Last year, BP shelled out almost $100 million on ad time and space in the U.S., according to an ad-tracking unit of WPP PLC.

BP bypassed its longtime ad agency, WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather, to create the new television ads, enlisting Purple Strategies, a Washington public-affairs firm that is owned by Republican strategist Alex Castellanos and Democratic consultant Steve McMahon, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In Crashing the Gates one of the core questions asked by Markos Moulitsas is why so many high-profile Democrats running for elected office hire political consultants that have a track record of losing more often than winning. I don’t think we really know. But one thing is clear, folks like Steve McMahon will work for just about anybody or any cause if the check is large enough.

For the full-size chart and detailed analysis click here.

Many, many more (some of which are not so polite) are located here.