Well, this was an unforced error:
[Rep. Joe] Barton [R-TX], the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said during opening statements at a hearing in which BP CEO Tony Hayward will testify that President Barack Obama and his administration had created a “slush fund” in the $20 billion fund.
“It is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown,” Barton said.
The fund is a $20 billion escrow account set up with BP funds to help the people whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the oil spill. Robert Gibbs was unmerciful (via email):
Statement by the Press Secretary on Congressman Joe Barton’s Apology to BP
“What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a ‘tragedy’, but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments.”
Boner had better sense:
“They’ve agreed to put this $20 billion dollars in escrow,” Boehner said during an appearance on Fox News. “I don’t know what context Mr. Barton was making that remark, but, I’m glad BP has accepted responsibility for their actions.”
A week ago, Boner appeared to say that the taxpayers should help foot the bill for the cleanup, but is now putting himself at odds with some of his members.
Finally, someone showing a little Christian concern for poor, embattled British Petroleum. With Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the only thing for certain is a predictable level of batty contrarianism. But this one … She’s getting plenty of attention in some sectors, if not her two local dailies, for her Wednesday comments, which followed the announcement of the $20 billion escrow fund to cover claims coming out of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. She says that BP, currently turning the Gulf into a waste holding tank, needs to watch out so it doesn’t get played for a “chump” and get “fleeced” by President Obama. The Washington Post’s David Weigel, the paper’s designated reporter for “the conservative movement and the Republican Party,” cornered Bachmann after a Heritage Foundation luncheon. This is where she said: “They shouldn’t have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest — they’ve got to be legitimate claims. ‘The other thing we have to remember is that Obama loves to make evil whatever company it is that he wants to get more power from. He makes them evil, and what we’ve got to ask ourselves is: Do we really want to be paying $9 for a gallon of gas? Because that could be the final result of this.’ “
I am enjoying the batty contrarianism of politicians who think it’s good politics to stick up for BP.
BP, also now know as “Big People”.
At least he didn’t call us proles.
“People” – yeah, that was the “P” word that I had in mind…
Surely even the hapless Hayward won’t be so foolish as to publicly call the $20 billion a “slush fund”. That would be the presumptive winner of the Tin Ear of the Decade Award.
I hope the Dems pick up on this GOP insanity beyond a statement from Gibbs. “First they shot down the bill that would have extended unemployment compensation to millions of American victims of our economic disaster. Now they’re calling the fund BP is required to set up to compensate the victims of the oil spill ‘extortion’. They don’t want poor, poor, BP to pay anything for the devastation it caused to the families and businesses in the Gulf region, or to have to do anything to mitigate the massive environmental tragedy that they let happen. Of course they don’t want the government to spend anything on mitigation either. In other words, they’re against anybody doing anything at all: they just want to cut the Gulf Coast and its people loose to fend for themselves. Finally, we have a clear definition of the Republican plan for America: just keep the corporations free from responsibility and to hell with our country and our people.”
Katrina washed away the N.O. projects. Well, not really. They just refused to let people return home to them. But they pretended that Katrina washed away the public housing and let all inhabitants move to Houston or Atlanta or Baton Rouge. The oil spill seems less useful to Republicans’ interests.
The Barton tape should be the center of the campaign attack season. Make him the one who finall cut through the rhetoric and enunciated the true GOP agenda.
Right you are sir.
Some of us are in Dallas too.
It was nothing but a shame that HUD and the NOLA pol estabishment did not open those housing projects.
They didn’t want them that close to their tourist traps in the first place (forget that the projects were there before the touris traps!!), so katrina gave them a ready excuse to demolish them.
The sad thing is that with all the people who were left homeless casue of the storm, white, black and Vietnamese, those projects would not have all been filled back up, and I would bet you even money, poor white and vietnamese as well woulda loved to have a place to live and they would be very happy to live in one of those project homes.
It’s one of the great tragedy of NOLA. And the karma from that decision is still effecting the city today. While they say that a large percentage of the pre-katrina residents are back, what they probably don’t mention is that most of those people are older people who have homes there, the young people did not and are not moving back to NOLA in large enough numbers. They are staying where they landed. No city can thrive without enough young people to keep the city going.
We wouldn’t want to make chumps of those poor, unsophisticated BP officials.
Don’t forget, Boner’s position now goes against Limpballs. Will we see Boner have to retract?
Thank God that we are not in a true World War such as World War II because if we were at the start of World War II these right wing idiots would all be making public statements supporting Adolph Hitler. I can imagine them publicly making many insane statements such as “Hitler should be supported and not attacked for he has done much to advance western culture and he loves the classical arts such as Wagner”.
Been there done that.
Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh were among those accepting the Third Reich’s highest civilian awards available to foreigners, for services rendered.
What a gift Barton gave to the president, he should be sending him flowers.