The average CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation can’t be expected to know every detail of the day-to-day operations of his company. Take, for example, Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum.

And I’m not picking on Tony just because his company was responsible for the biggest environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, just as I would never pick on the CEO of Goldman Sachs for sending us into a worldwide recession that we still haven’t completely gotten out of.

But I would pick on Tony for having a somewhat haughty British accent with a “Yes, we sh—t in your Gulf and I’m sorry, but I’m going to spend the weekend sailing around the Isle of Wight in my $700,000 sailboat; how are you going to spend yours?” kind of attitude.

Let’s not be too harsh. Tony Hayward, just like most CEOs, is out of the loop.

Just look at the following transcript of his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, two months after the oil leak began:

Question: “Mr. Hayward, what does BP stand for?”

Answer: “I don’t know. I wasn’t part of the decision-making process.”

Question: “Does it stand for British Petroleum?”

Answer: “As I said, I was simply not involved in the decision-making process.”

Question: “Your company is in the oil business, is it not?”

Answer: “I’m sorry. That was a decision I was not a party to.”

One congressman accused Hayward of “stonewalling,” but his testimony merely reflects the growing trend among large corporations to keep their CEOs in the dark. Meanwhile, the day-to-day management of the company is left in the hands of what executives admiringly refer to as “the small people.”

This enables top executives to concentrate on the “big picture,” which involves monitoring the value of their personal stock options, checking their bank accounts once a year for their Christmas bonuses, and looking foolish before congressional committees whenever the company commits a major faux pas, such as killing an ocean or destroying the world’s economy.

Even after BP agreed in a White House meeting to set aside $20 billion in escrow to compensate victims of the Gulf oil disaster, it still seemed as if BP didn’t have a friend in the world — but it did, and it only needed to look as far as Congress to find one in Republican U.S. Representative Joe “Owned by Big Oil” Barton, who proved once again that in Texas, everything is bigger — including the a—holes.

Joe, who is the Republicans’ top man on the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee (Yikes! The fox is guarding the henhouse!), described the escrow fund as a “tragedy” and apologized to BP for what he called a “shakedown.”

Rep. Barton, who is clearly too stupid to even be the top man in his local Tea Party group, later apologized for his apology, explaining that his comments had been “misconstructed.”

Joe, no need to apologize, because I don’t think your comments were “misconstructed” at all, just as I don’t think that you intentionally “misdefecated” all over yourself for having the courage to commit political hari-kari by standing up for your convictions and apologizing to the Darth Vader of environmental catastrophes. In fact, I’m sure, if you had only known that your political career would have been “destructified” by your remarks, you never would have “misspokened.”

But before we criticize Mr. Barton for his remarks, remember that this is a free country, where everyone is free to express their unpopular opinions, just as I am free to award you, Rep. Joe Barton, this month’s Red Shtick “Mental Vacation” Friend of Big Oil Award, which is in the shape of a quart of oil. (It is, in fact, Joe, an actual quart of oil that has been poked with tiny holes that will continue to leak oil on your desk for months to come. Just our way of saying “thanks” for being a friend of Big Oil.)

Rep. Barton was not the only one who has had his comments about the gulf oil spill misconstructed. BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg also took heat for expressing BP’s concern for the “small people” along the Gulf Coast.

Many people, unaware of BP’s affirmative action dwarf-hiring policy, took offense to the remarks. Svanberg later apologized, saying he spoke “clumsily, ya” and that what he actually meant by “small people” were those people “making less than $5 million a year.”

BP CEO Tony Hayward was also criticized for taking a day off from the daily grind of destroying the gulf to sail his $700,000 yacht around the Isle of Wight. In my view, this criticism was unjustified.

I mean, come on, guys! If you had a $700,000 yacht, would you be sailing it through all those putrid oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico?

Perhaps Tony was sailing the British Channel in search of some of the “small people.”