[morethanpretty]

Originally Posted by glatt

As much as I disagree with him, I actually respect Joe Barton for making that statement. Conservatives have long abhorred government meddling in business practices, and he's being consistent on that point at a time when it's wildly unpopular to say such a thing.

The rest of the two-faced conservatives who were saying "drill baby drill" just a short while ago and are now condemning BP do not have my respect.

He's already retracted his apology.

Originally Posted by AP

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Who's sorry now? Rep. Joe Barton, that's who.

The Texas Republican, the House's top recipient of oil industry campaign contributions since 1990, apologized Thursday for apologizing to the chief of the British company that befouled the Gulf of Mexico with a massive oil spill.

His double mea culpa plus a retraction, executed under pressure from fuming GOP leaders, succeeded in shifting attention from the tragedy, BP's many missteps and the stoic British oil chief at the witness table, to his own party's close connection to the oil industry.

Barton started the ruckus at midmorning when he took aim at the $20 billion relief fund for victims of the spill sought by the White House and agreed to by BP.

"I apologize," Barton said to BP CEO Tony Hayward, who was sitting at a witness table for another of Congress' ritual floggings of wayward corporate heads.

"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," Barton said. "So I apologize."

Incensed at the gift Barton had given Democrats, Republicans came close to stripping Barton of his post as chairman-in-waiting of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. GOP leaders summoned Barton to the Capitol and demanded he apologize in specific terms. The leaders threatened to launch a process to strip Barton of his seniority on the powerful panel, a particularly painful threat to any long-term lawmaker, according to two knowledgeable Republican officials who demanded anonymity so they could speak freely about private meetings.

LINK

Yeah, consistency in douche-baggery political sleezy hypocrisy.