April D. Ryan

 
POLITICO
W.H. downplays ’small people’
By: Glenn Thrush
June 16, 2010

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs thinks “small people” is no big deal.

That sentiment isn’t shared by many people in the Gulf.

After one of the few good news days for the administration since the start of the Deepwater Horizon spill, BP board chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, a native Swede, blundered into the minefield of American populism.

Approaching the microphones after suspending his company’s dividend to fund a $20 million escrow account for those hurt by the spill, remarked that both President Obama and BP executives were motivated by the trevails of “small people” in the Gulf.

During the daily press briefing, April Ryan of American Urban Radio asked Gibbs to comment on the statement.

Gibbs, with an assist from Obama environmental adviser Carol Browner, said that Obama was motivated by his encounters with people in the Gulf and intent on doing right by them. But Ryan pressed on, asking Gibbs if Svanberg had used the “wrong terminology” - and Gibbs finally conceded “I assume so, yes.”

But residents in the Gulf, surveyed by the Associated Press, were considerably less forgiving:

“We’re not small people. We’re human beings. They’re no greater than us. We don’t bow down to them. We don’t pray to them,” said New Orlans resident Justin Taffinder.

Retiree Terry Hanners, who lives in Gulf Shores, Ala., said the remark revealed something about BP’s view of the spill’s victims.

“These BP people I’ve met are good folks. I’ve got a good rapport with them,” said Hanners, 74. “But BP does not care about us. They are so far above us. We are the nickel-and-dime folks of this world.”