The Party of BP

Unbelievably enough, U.S. Representative Joe Barton--the Republican congressman from Texas who’s in line to become head of the House Energy Committee, should the GOP manage to take control of that chamber in this year’s midterm elections--apologized to oil giant British Petroleum this morning for the pressure President Obama put on BP “to put aside $20 billion in escrow to bring relief to those hardest hit by the disaster.” Barton told BP CEO Tony Hayward during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing: “I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.” Not surprisingly, this suck-up to the company responsible for dumping as much as much as 60,000 barrels of oil each day into the Gulf of Mexico has sparked a furor on Capitol Hill. But it’s certainly not the first time of late that Republicans have sided with BP over American citizens.

READ MORE: “On the Offensive--and in Campaign Mode,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “‘Misconstrued’ Barton Got His ‘Shakedown’ Language from a Conservative Caucus Press Release,” by Alex Pareene (Salon); “‘I Apologize’--the GOP Love Affair with BP and Big Business Lives On,” by John Aravosis (AMERICAblog); “An Oily Wave of GOP Pollution,” by Joan Walsh (Salon); “Same Old Song and Dance,” by J.D. Rhoades (What Fresh Hell Is This?); “Barton’s Grovel, GOP’s Emblematic Moment,” by J.P. Green (The Democratic Strategist); “Here Come the Clowns No. 2: Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), a Clown Among Clowns,” by Frederik Pohl (The Way the Future Blogs).

Absolutely Outrageous!

John Boehner, the perpetually tanned Ohio Republican who currently serves as minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, but who hopes to ascend to the speaker’s chair, if his fellow partisans can convince voters to give the GOP (Gridlock and Obstruction Party) control of the House in November’s midterm elections, says he agrees with U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, that American taxpayers--not just the company responsible, British Petroleum (BP)--ought to pay the exorbitant costs of cleaning up the current oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. “I think the people responsible in the oil spill--BP and the federal government--should take full responsibility for what’s happening there,” Boehner said during his weekly press conference this morning. Now, we all know that Republicans worship at the feet of Big Business, but this is a flagrant case of putting special interests ahead of the public interest.

There’s more on Boehner’s statement here.

READ MORE: “The Would-Be Speaker,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly).