Top 15 Dumbest Quotes About the Gulf Oil Spill

The Most Ridiculous and Delusional Statements About BP's Oil Spill Disaster

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• Gulf Oil Spill Jokes

1. "We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back." —BP CEO Tony Hayward, on the oil spill disaster that claimed 11 lives and has since spewed 20 to 100 million gallons of toxic oil into the Gulf of Mexico, May 31, 2010.

2. "I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown -- in this case a $20 billion shakedown ... I apologize. I do not want to live in a county where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, [it is] subject to some sort of political pressure that, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown." —Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) during a congressional hearing with BP CEO Tony Hayward, referring to a $20 billion fund for damages that President Obama pressured BP to set up to pay for the Gulf oil spill. Barton, the biggest recipient of oil and gas industry campaign contributions in the House of Representatives, was later forced by Republican leaders to apologize for his BP apology.

3. "I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest." —Tony Hayward, interview with Sky News television, May 18, 2010

4. "What better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I'm just noting the timing, here." —Rush Limbaugh, suggesting that "environmentalist whackos" deliberately blew up the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in order to stop offshore drilling, April 29, 2010

5. "What the hell did we do to deserve this?" --BP CEO Tony Hayward, speaking to fellow executives in London about the Gulf oil spill disaster, May 2, 2010

6. "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people." --BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, speaking to reporters in Washington, June 16, 2010

7. "The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and left out there. It's natural. It's as natural as the ocean water is." —Rush Limbaugh, May 3, 2010

8. "Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country's energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It's catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it." —Sarah Palin, blaming the Gulf oil spill disaster on "extreme environmentalists," Facebook message, June 2, 2010

9. "There's a good question today if you are standing on the Gulf, and that is: Where is the oil?" —FOX News anchor Brit Hume, scoffing at the BP oil spill disaster, May 16, 2010

10. "What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP. I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen." —Rand Paul, the conservative Tea Party candidate who won the Republican Senate primary in Kentucky, May 21, 2010

11. "When do we ask the Sierra Club to pick up the tab for this leak?" –blaming the oil spill in the Gulf on the Sierra Club, arguing that the environmental group had driven oil producers off the land to more high-risk situations offshore, May 17, 2010

12. "From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented." —Texas Gov. Rick Perry, May 3, 2010

13. "I mean, accidents happen. You learn from them and you try to make sure they don't happen again." –Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), May 4, 2010

14. "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." —Tony Hayward, May 14, 2010

15. "Yeah, of course I am." —Tony Hayward, when asked if he sleeps at night, Forbes, May 18, 2010

~Compiled by Daniel Kurtzman

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