• Bloomberg News, Tuesday, June 8, 2010 10:46 AM

Bloomberg News columnist Matthew Lynn, writing out of London, has a contrarian piece of advice for BP executives. Stop groveling to Americans, wringing your hands at every photo op. It's not going to do any good anyway -- you'll be about as popular as the Third Reich in 1946 not matter what you do and, besides, the U.S. is filled with a bunch of whining, two-faced oil addicts.

Instead of the apologetic, by-the-book PR campaign it has been conducting, Lynn, with tongue seemingly apart from cheek, writes that BP "should tell the U.S., and everybody in it, to go take a hike. In reality, the U.S. is guilty of the most appalling hypocrisy. It's too late to rescue BP's reputation now; all it can realistically hope for is to salvage as much money for shareholders as possible."

He also suggests hiring the "the nastiest, meanest lawyers that money can buy" to fight lawsuits instead of ad agencies and PR types to burnish its image. "George W. Bush was the most-hated man in France," he reminds CEO Tony Hayward, "but since he wasn't looking for any votes in Bordeaux, it didn't count for much." Bottom line (and that's what we're talking about, right?): "Sorry about the oil spill, but so it goes. Goodbye and goodnight."

Read the whole story at Bloomberg News »