Joe Barton Probably In Trouble For Apologizing for Apologizing Now

I was careful yesterday to mock only Joe Barton over his heartfelt apology to BP for making them volunteer to commit money to compensate victims of their oil spill. After all, as he said, he was only speaking for himself. Besides by the end of the day he was saying that he wasn't even doing that. Anyway, it's not like ALL Republicans feel that way.

Just THESE REPUBLICANS.

– PAT BUCHANAN: “Barton made a very courageous statement in my judgment. … To have anyone stand up and even indirectly defend [BP] and say that they were a victim of a shakedown shows some political courage.”

– INGRAHAM: “I think Joe Barton, before he apologized, had a legitimate point.”

– NAPOLITANO: “That is a classic shakedown. The threat to do something that you don’t have the authority to do. ”

– KILMEADE: “One Congressman calling the BP compsensation fund a ’shakedown,’ but does he have a point?”

– GINGRICH: “The president is directly engaged in extorting money from a company.”

– VARNEY: “It is Hugo Chavez-like, is it not? To sieze a private company’s assets.”

So I think it's fair now to say that the Republican position is that it's okay to destroy the economy of a region, as long as there's a potential to keep the price of oil down nationally. Though also they're against any sort of requirement to keep the price down. Or to sell the oil in the US.

But again, Obama isn't doing enough in this crisis.