Posted on 06/17/2010 11:45:20 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) The first apology that rang out in a congressional hearing about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on Thursday was not from BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward.
It was from Texas Republican Representative Joe Barton, who apologized to Hayward for BP's having to agree to a deal with President Barack Obama to set up a $20 billion fund for Gulf damage claims.
"I'm speaking totally for myself, I'm not speaking for the Republican party ... but I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said.
He called it "a tragedy of the first proportion, that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, a $20 billion shakedown."
Barton's point was that BP should pay for damage claims but should be allowed to follow the "due process and fairness" of the American legal system.
...
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs quickly denounced Barton and called on members of both parties to repudiate his comments.
"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," said Gibbs.
BARTON NOT ALONE
Barton is not alone among Republicans holding this view.
Georgia Republican Representative Tom Price, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative House members, issued a statement on Wednesday arguing the same point.
He said the White House does not have the legal authority to compel a private company to set up and fund an escrow account. The White House has dismissed such criticism.
Price said BP's willingness to go along with the White House's new fund suggests that the Obama administration is "hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Extortion is the only thing Obama&Co. are good at years of on the job training pays off.
Yep, I hear Sean Hannity say the exact same thing everday on his radio show. How many elections has Sean Hannity won? Zero, zip, nada, none.
Republicans are most likely to win when they get more people to vote for them than vote for the other guy. That's called popularity. You make it that much more difficult to be popular when you defend HIGHLY UNPOPULAR groups, to include criminally negligent companies who are in the process of destroying the livelihoods of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of middle-class Americans.
"Most people can walk and chew gum at the same time. "
No, most people can't - at least not the people who vote. If they could, they wouldn't have elected a man to the office who was to the left of Bernie Sanders and the most inexperienced President, perhaps ever.
If "people" were discerning and discriminating consumers of information, then infomercials wouldn't be as wildly successful as they are.
"I suspect Barton's principled stand will do little if any damage to the Republican efforts to retake the House."
I suspect you'd fit right at home in the marketing department of the GOP because it's exactly that kind of disordered thinking at hapless campaign strategy that has led to the GOP being the minority party.
“Is that the same court system that allowed Exxon to stall paying damages for almost 20 years?”
I have assume you like the Chicago extortion method better?
Not really, but then again I’m not someone whose livelihood is being effected today and who can’t afford to drag a major corporation into court through years of appeals.
I love John McCain? Why would I love John McCain? He ran a HORRIBLE and idiotic campaign, saying all kinds of stupid things and political idiotic things all along the way, just like Barton.
Politics is a game of chess. Republicans have been playing checkers the last four years, and Barton appears to be playing marbles.
Defending BP during this crisis, when they actually deserve everything that is coming their way, is political suicide and profoundly stupid.
John McCAin was the consumate political windmill. He reached across the aisle so often, he had a permanent seat on the other side. He was so concerned with being politically correct and working together that he is the embodiment of what you are advocating.
This has nothing to do with reaching across the ideals or political correctness or abandoning conservative ideals. It has to do with NOT being politically retarded.
BP is WILDLY unpopular, and with tremendous reason. Why anyone thinks it's a politically intelligent idea to defend a criminal enterprise - and that is EXACTLY how BP has been behaving - is a mystery, an absolute mystery.
Ummm...Barton just retracted the apology to BP. And apologized for apologizing.
Legal precedence is a bitch...
Nonsense...there is nothing American about this shakedown...more like 3rd world dictator actions.
(WSJ)A government-administered fund more or less guarantees a more politicized payment process. The escrow administrator will be chosen by the White House, and as such would be influenced by the Administrations political goals. Those goals would include payments to those harmed by the Administrations own six-month deep water drilling ban. That reckless policy will soon put thousands of Gulf Coast residents out of work, but the White House knows that BP isnt liable under current law for those claims. The escrow account is an attempt to tap BPs funds by other means to pay the costs of Mr. Obamas own policy blunder.
I agree with you.
Republicans aren’t the “stupid party” for nothing.
Instead Barton should have asked Hayward why he waived BP’s Due Process rights, if there was any coercion or pressure put on them by the 0bama regime, and what they are doing to protect shareholders’ investments.
"You mention 'extortion' again, and I'll have your legs broken."
That would require that a politician actually ask probing and insightful questions in a Congressional hearing, rather than engaging in the Kubuki theater these hearings have become in the last 70 years.
Barton tried to be dramatic and failed miserably.
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