Three BP Monkeys: Tony, Ken & Joe

The BP oil spew has its version of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. BP CEO Tony Hayward told a congressional hearing on Thursday it was too early in the investigations to draw conclusions. See no evil.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was charged with an initial investigation into the accident. He bailed on that charge. Speak no evil.

Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) apologized to BP for the White House shakedown. He later retracted his apology, but for his initial act Joe is Hear no evil.

Meanwhile a partner in the gushing well eviscerated BP. The TelegraphUK reported:

Jim Hackett, chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum, launched a scathing attack, saying he was "shocked" by the details emerging from initial investigations into events leading to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April, which killed 11 oil workers.

This information "indicates BP operated unsafely and failed to monitor and react to several critical warning signs during the drilling of the well," he said.

Tony, Ken & Joe won't say it. The pressure is now on President Obama's Oil Spew Commission.

Two of its seven members have significant BP ties. Co-chair William Reilly controls over $2 million in stock in ConocoPhillips, a joint venture partner with BP in the massive Tiber field in the Gulf of Mexico. Fran Ulmer is Chancellor for the University of Alaska Anchorage. The University received over $30 million in gifts from BP and ConocoPhillips in the last decade.

How might BP's external advisory council come to BP's aid? Surely, Tom Daschle, Alan Simpson, Jamie Gorelick, Skip Bowman, Christine Todd Whitman and Mark Hamilton, President of the University of Alaska, can influence the outcome.