President Obama meets BP chairman, who says company is helping the 'small people'

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

BP officials agreed to the White House’s demand that they create a $20 billion escrow fund to pay claims to Gulf Coast residents and business owners, whom the company’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, referred to as “the small people.”

Emerging from a four-hour meeting with more than a dozen senior administration officials, and a brief face-to-face with President Barack Obama, Svanberg told reporters that BP will also suspend dividend payments to shareholders this year and create a $100 million fund to assist oil rig workers left jobless by the government’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

“He’s frustrated because he cares about the small people, and we care about the small people," Svanberg said of Obama. "I hear comments that sometimes large oil companies are greedy companies that don’t care. But that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people."

Minutes earlier, Obama veered from his teleprompter script to urge BP officials to consider Gulf residents and business owners, already struggling to rebound from Hurricane Katrina, when making financial decisions.
________

Well, now we know. He cares about midgets, er, little people.

[Sanguine]

“He’s frustrated because he cares about the small people, and we care about the small people," Svanberg said of Obama. "I hear comments that sometimes large oil companies are greedy companies that don’t care. But that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people."

 

Sounds like Barama's brother from another mother. They're both not sure who the "small people" are, and what they do, but they're very concerned about them. In a vague, general sort of way...

[NCTexan]

Both Barry and Svanberg are having a tough time talking to the "small people" as explained by CNN. "Speech too difficult for audience."

 

Interesting to guess who CNN thinks is Barry's "target audience" might be.

 

CNN

 

(CNN) -- President Obama's speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.

 

Tuesday night's speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.

 

Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence "added some difficulty for his target audience," Payack said.

 

He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: "That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation's best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge -- a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation's secretary of energy."

 

"A little less professorial, less academic and more ordinary," Payack recommended. "That's the type of phraseology that makes you (appear) aloof and out of touch."

 

The monitor's chief word analyst found these three sentences insensitive: "Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it is not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years."

 

"You shouldn't be saying that in Katrina land," said Payack, referring to the 2005 hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast. "New Orleans lost a third of its population; it's still recovering."

 

But he praised Obama's phrase "oil began spewing" as active and graphic.

 

At a micro level, the average word in the speech contained 4.5 letters, a bit longer than is typical for the former constitutional law professor, Payack said.

 

Obama's nearly 10th-grade-level rating was the highest of any of his major speeches and well above the Grade 7.4 of his 2008 "Yes, we can" victory speech, which many consider his best effort, Payack said.

 

"The scores indicate that this was not Obama at his best, especially when attempting to make an emotional connection to the American people," he added.

 

Maybe Barry needs to take a cue from the title of David Sedaris' book:

 

[Pepper]

It is ironic that the chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg of BP, in a language not his native language without a tele prompter in English, misuses one word small for little and the world jumps on him?

 

I say, Hu-Yu??? in the media to speak of grammar usage? Particularly to criticize that of a non-native speaker? Even FOX is making a big deal of this.

 

Meanwhile, our pResident in Chief, supposedly a masterful author and speaker, stumbles and fumbles with or without tele prompter, misspeaks, and gets away with it?

 

Marine Corps Corpse

 

Barack Obama - Gaffe Mania

 

Barack Obama - Gaffe Mania II - Hero of the Stupid

 

 

Or the idiots in Congress who confuse nationalize and socialize.

 

Don't forget our VP, Joe Biden, making gaffe after gaffe?

[Pepper]

Watching a glimpse of the CONG-FU sitting in their lofty seats grilling BP.

 

A dog and pony show that shows them as dolts.

[Pepper]

We need to keep a tally of how many jobs the BM (Barack's Moratorium) will cost.

 

Blackrock Investments lost at least 7 BILLION out of 14 BILLION they have in BP, thanks to Obama.