It is truely amazing to see the depths of degradation some politicians will go to just to curry favor with big business.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, sits on the committee that is grilling the head of BP oil over the oil spill currently fouling beaches along thousands of miles of coastline and adding millions of barrels of oil to the Gulf of Mexico.
His reaction to the whole thing: Apoligize for President Obama being nasty to BP.
How is this level of cluelessness possible? Well, he’s a politicians, is how. In American politics, especially for what passes for the GOP these days, it’s all about being against everything President Obama does. As I’ve said here before, if Obama saved a puppy, some members of the GOP would find a way to criticize him for it.
Barton is a case in point. Apparently he didn’t get the memo that BP is the bad guy in all this. There is a public outcry demanding it be put on the hook for billions of dollars of costs, and there is a national outcry for someone, anyone, to make sure they pay up. Obama has done just that.
So, naturally, Barton’s first reaction as a party loyalist was to apologize to BP. You can read it all here (click).
Amazingly, even his own party can’t quite handle this one, and have forced him to retract his apology.
His first reaction, of course, was to claim he was somehow misquoted — that pesky liberal media and their liberal tape recorders again! — but now he’s just said he’s sorry he was sorry.
I haven’t time to check on how much in campaign donations he gets from the oil industry, but I’d bet it’s substantial.
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For other matters Joe Barton would like to apologize for, see this.
Just came across the following picture [link] of the surf near Gulf Shores, Alabama — a beach resort area that does most of its business in the summer months [it's sometimes called "the red-neck Riviera"]. I’ve seen a lot of pictures of the results of the spill, but this one in particular really drove the magnitude disaster home for me. Here’s the link:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2010/06/surfs_up/alabama_surf.jpeg
Bob: the “redneck Riviera” is used to describe pretty much everything from the Florida panhandle (beginning at say, Panama City in the east) to about Bay St. Louis in MS in the west.
Did anyone notice how much Texas Republican Representative Joe Barton resembles the banjo playing inbred kid in the movie “Deliverance”? lol
How can any Great American stick up for BP? As far as horrific damage to the USA goes Joe Barton might as well have taken sides with Osama bin Lunatic and Al Qaeda… When one really thinks about it, Republicans have done more damage to our beloved USA than any Middle Eastern terrorist. Freak’n traitors!
cyberbitchslap2.blogspot.com
I just wonder if Republicans will ever notice that that throw the book at individuals who break the law, but tend to want to protect corporations that do.
A story running in this morning’s SE reports that Rep. Barton has received about $1.5 million in recent years in campaign donations from oil industry sources — individuals and PACS. [I'd put up a link here, but I can't find the story this AM in the on line edition. A search for "Joe Barton" and "apology" doesn't bring it up, it's not in the "latest news" stack nor in the "business" stack. I read it in the print edition.]
All that methane gas in this well in the gulf. Could this gas escape into space. With the sun in space could this set off a solar flare called the kill shot? Something to think about?
Charlie, to answer your question about how much money Barton has received from Big Oil:
$1,676,930
Here’s the Reuters fact box:
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN1724393720100617
Notice that although many committee members have received donations, Barton’s take is nearly as much as ALL Democrats together.
…..and this is going to get worse, now that the right-wing Supreme Court has declared corporations to have the same free speech rights as individuals.