Posted on 06/17/2010 4:36:15 PM PDT by tobyhill
Under pressure from Republican leaders who threatened to remove him from a ranking committee position, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) late Thursday retracted his apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward for the way his company has been treated by the U.S. government -- a comment that had drawn heavy criticism from both parties.
Barton made that apology to Hayward in his opening statement Thursday morning before Hayward's testimony to the House subcommittee, in which Barton decried the Obama administration for pressuring BP to open a $20 billion escrow account and to suspend dividend payments for the rest of the year.
The ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said such arrangements have no legal basis, and that the political pressure exerted on the corporation in the midst of an investigation is a "tragedy of the first proportion."
"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said in the morning. "I apologize."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I am ashamed of the people who made him apologize and I’m sure Mr. Barton is getting a lot of supporting emails....
“Let’s take a chance on a party actually grounded in Conservative values. “
There is no way that will happen, it will simply divide. We can change the Republican party...we already own a substantial part of it.
Obviously, Barton needed to be like someone the GOP loves, Joseph Cao. Cao votes for the un-Constitutional, un-American health scare and then tells oil execs to go kill themselves. The GOP loves that sh*t. That’s their kind of guy.
I’ve already said that I’m staying at home in November. These people are not ready to fight, let alone lead. Returning them to office prematurely would be a bigger disaster than giving the Rats two more years.
This voterso country need to have their noses rubbed in the mess that they created. Nothing can change my mind.
“We’ve tried restructuring the GOP but all we get is the GOP establishment dictating what we say, how we say it and forced acceptance of their incompetence.”
Our work is not finished, that is all that means. My God, you really do not want a violent revolution at this point I hope. We still have time for that down the road. Let’s give the Founding Fathers and God some credit with the design of our government...we can have a peaceful revolution via the election process.
There are more free market/American philosophy followers now than there were three years ago. We are taking back the Republican party...perhaps you are being a bit too critical at this juncture. Do you really think it is easier to build a new party or make a irrelevant party large than to change the Republican party?
When I saw he’d nailed Obama as a shakedown artist I emailed Rep. Barton and praised and blesses him. When I later saw that Barton had recanted, I emailed him and took it all back. There is no one so damned as he who knows the truth and departs from it. I’ll bet Gov. Chris Christie would have called it and stuck by it.
This will be forgotten in 24 hours.
Yet another reason for my refusal to fund national GOP fundraising efforts the next time their telemarketers call....
RNC is famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory—they should have let Barton’s statement stand. Aside from being accurate, he showed some chutzpah!
Hopefully the barge that was stopped by our government will be the news of the day. Good Gravy I have to pinch myself sometimes to see if Im really here.
We do need a new party: The Conservative party, composed of conservative republicans, democrats, libertarians, and independents.
Barton will be a punching bag tonight and tomorrow morning, especially on MSNBC, but the issue will disappear in 24 hours because the entire House GOP caucus either criticized Joe or refused to support him. I’m sure Mika will be out of control tomorrow morning, regardless of the barges.
Barton was stupid, his statement was ill-conceived, and no matter what else we may think, BP’s president does NOT deserve an apology.
We can attack Obama without kissing up to the guy who runs the company that has filled our GOM with oil.
I don’t see apologizing to the BP exec who supports Cap and Trade, gives most of their money to Democrats, and was a willing participant in giving Obama a 20 billion slush fund as a “conservative principle”.
We should be attacking Obama for the shakedown, not apologizing to BP.
I agree. The challenge, as always, will be keeping the new party from being corrupted.
Did you ever notice how many evil corporations there are? BP’s a foreign corporation, but it’s pure evil. So are the banks, the auto industry, the healthcare industry, and who knows what else. All these corporations are evil to the Democrats. It’s part of their template.
Did you ever notice how many evil corporations there are? BP’s a foreign corporation, but it’s pure evil. So are the banks, the auto industry, the healthcare industry, and who knows what else. All these corporations are evil to the Democrats. It’s part of their template.
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