QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Goldman, BP and Immortality

Senator Carl Levin lays it on the line with Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Image: Reuters

Competition was tough as we set out to select our first-ever Quote of the Week. The contest actually could have started and ended with Tuesday's hearing of Goldman Sachs representatives before the Senate’s Subcommittee on Investigations, which proved a fertile ground for profane and/or memorable lines.

Michigan Senator Carl Levin was pithy and on-point as he made use of an expletive seldom employed during Senate hearings broadcast live around the world. "You knew it was a sh*tty deal, and that's what your email shows," he said, challenging Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. (Here's the footage )

Blankfein was not to be upstaged. Blankfein locked horns with Levin for what seemed like an eternity, and defended himself with a curious but memorable riposte: “Our clients’ trust is very important to us. The thing we are selling them is supposed to give them the risk they want. "

Honorable mention: Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre, the lone Goldman employee named in the SEC's claim. "I deny—categorically—the SEC's allegation. I will defend myself in court against this false claim."

In comparison, BP CEO Tony Hayward sounded almost like a statesman as he took responsibility in the wake of the massive oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. "We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that," Hayward told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Does that include dry cleaning bills?

Yet when it came to breadth of vision and rhetorical daring, no one spoke with more power, or better comedic timing, than Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, addressing his favorite topic—himself.

"The difference between me and (News Corp Chairman Rupert) Murdoch is, he lives in ink and I live with movies and television. Ink is going to go away, and movies and television will be here forever—just like me."

The winner: for timeliness, economy of expression, and grace under the pressure of live TV, the award goes to Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.