Thursday, June 17

I wish Joe Barton (R-TX) was my dad.

OK, maybe not my dad. My dad's not so bad. But maybe my granddad, because seriously, I bet Joe Barton's kids live like fricking kings.

I didn't do a lot of egregiously bad isht when I was a kid, but I did get in a heap of trouble when I was 18 for throwing a party while my parents were out of town, after having been explicitly instructed not to. The party was a real rager -- 50-something people, underage drinking, smoking, people running around naked in the backyard, a true suburban Columbus classic -- but it wasn't the party itself my parents were mad about. Hell, I cleaned up so well afterward that they didn't even find out about it until nearly a week after they'd gotten back. What they were mad about was that I'd lied about it, and lying being about the worst thing you could do in my family, they brought the hammer down on me: Lost the use of my car for the rest of the school year, grounded anytime I came home from UGA, probably forfeited my monthly allowance somewhere along the line. About the most severe punishment I got for anything I did as a teenager, now that I think about it.

If Joe Barton had been my granddad, though, he would've bitched my parents out and apologized on their behalf for being so mean to me.



Your eyes/ears do not deceive you -- Barton apologized to BP for mean nasty Obama making them pay for the damage they'd inflicted upon the Gulf coast. And while he claimed to be speaking only for himself and not the Republican Party, he wasn't the only one: The Republican Study Committee -- a caucus that comprises nearly two-thirds of the GOP's current House membership -- echoed Barton's sentiment that BP being instructed to set up a $20-billion escrow account to pay spill-related claims amounted to a "Chicago-style shakedown." All of the usual talk-radio suspects -- Limbaugh, Hannity, Oliver North -- are using suspiciously identical "slush fund" rhetoric to criticize the account. Tea Party hero Rand Paul, of course, said it was "un-American" for Obama to criticize BP at all.

Look, everyone has the right to criticize Obama (or any other president) to their hearts' content, but how craven do you have to be to plant your nose in BP's anus so that you can trash-talk him? Are they so confident in their ability to retake Congress this fall that they figure they can afford to throw a pity party for the most despised corporation in the country? Or as one of the few entities in America whose approval ratings are almost as low as BP's, is this their idea of "climbing down into the crevasse"?

I have no idea. All I know is, the next time I get stopped for speeding, I hope I've got Joe Barton in the car with me to wring an apology out of the cop for pulling me over.

(Yeah, the political stuff's back too, dorks. Drink it in.)

6 comments:

Ivory Tower said...

And this is the man that wants to take over college football.

Ollllddude said...

Generally, I love your political stuff, but this is low hanging fruit - really the lowest because even John Boehner thinks Barton was a douche here - for you. But I get that you have been away for a while, and it might take baby steps to get going full steam. I expect a little more next time. ;)

Fran / Blue Gal said...

No I loved this post, and my opinion counts for a lot!!! (there, I said it) love the personal angle. Welcome back, babe.

Charlestowne said...

I am not a fan of apologizing to BP for anything. And I think they should have to pay for 100% of the cleanup + damages, however, from a corporate finance point of view I am not sure about the escrow thing. $20b is a lot of money to have laying around not working for the company. I hope, at least, this is the problem that they have with it.

johnny phenothiazine said...

ctgarrick: BP made $40-billion in profit during 2008 and 2009. At this rate, I think they can survive paying out $20-billion over a four-year period; all they have to do is reduce - not even eliminate, just reduce - their dividends to stockholders.

Besides which, imagine I get drunk, run a stop sign, and total your new $30,000 car. Imagine I've been drinking so much that I forgot to renew my auto liability insurance, and instead became, ha ha, "self-insured." I don't happen to be rich; it would be quite difficult for me to come up with the money to replace your car. How concerned are you going to be about my plight, from a "personal finance point-of-view"?

Chris in Seattle said...

Welcome back dude. Too bad you didn't get to run your NCAA Bball bracket pool this year. My bracket hadn't seen such a trashing since Dwayne Wade blew it up way back when. Any way...

Great post. I think your dad had it exactly right, that the lie was far worse then the deed. It's something you Just Don't do. as to Barton...

He's a BePublican. Whatever you call the party, his affiliation says everything you need to know. They Lie. It's what they do; it's all they do; and they absolutely will not stop.

That there are working class people, not making $205 k/yr, not being set for life through inherited wealth, who vote for these ... <== insert favorite expletive
It's beyond me. How stupid can a person be?