It’s been a few days since we’ve heard from BP’s Tony Hayward.  I envision his PR team struggling with rope and duct tape to bind and gag him in the boardroom, posting sentries at the door.  The man just kept spewing gaffes like, um, oil in the Gulf.

To recap a few of his most egregious utterings:

“What the hell did we do to deserve this?”

PR lesson #1:  It is not about you, Tony, or even your company.  It is about the 11 people who died, and the people whose livelihoods are destroyed, to say nothing of the environment.  How can a CEO be this tone deaf?  People’s lives are lost.  Keep priorities straight.

“The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it [the Gulf] is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

Are you trying to tell us this is not much of a problem, Tony?  If so, here’s PR lesson #2:  Tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Do not attempt to downplay or understate the problem.  It just irks people deeply when you assume they are too dumb to know the biggest environmental disaster in history when they see it.

“I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.”

Tony, Tony, Tony.  See PR lesson #2.

And finally, the ever famous, “I’d like my life back.”

PR people everywhere are checking their records to see when they’ve last updated their CEO’s media training.  For years I tried to get one of my clients to develop a crisis communication program that included CEO training, but they always had other priorities.  And yes, I understand that.  It’s easy to put off and invest the money in more urgent initiatives that have obvious payback.

But if a disaster strikes, it’s too late for media training.  You’ll have to get out the duct tape.