Salazar testimony sullied by ‘oil’ spatter

A female protester disrupted the Senate testimony of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday when she poured what appeared to be fake oil all over herself.

Diane Wilson, who identified herself to photographers as a fisherwoman from Seadrift, Texas, stood up a few rows behind Salazar and doused herself with dark syrup from a jar labeled “oil.”

Capitol Hill police immediately grabbed Wilson and took her out of the hearing room, handcuffing her in the hall.

The messy protest was one of the most confrontational disruptions of a Cabinet secretary’s testimony in recent memory. Protesters usually just shout criticism or wave signs before being escorted from the room.

Senate staff had difficulty cleaning up the black mess Wilson left behind, which did not appear to be real oil, said a Senate aide who witnessed the incident.

The audacity of the stunt is a sign of mounting public anger over the federal response to the Gulf oil spill, which Salazar has helped coordinate.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed 69 percent of people have rated the federal reaction negatively. That is worse than the 62 percent negative rating of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.