It”s not often politicians are bold enough to actually speak their minds without parsing their words for political correctness. Straight answers without convoluted mealy- mouthed qualifiers that offer Nixon”s famous “plausible deniability” are now the norm and it is almost unheard of for us to get a clear, meaningful glimpse of a politician”s mind. Enter Congressman Joe Barton, R-Big Oil, from Texas. I believe history will look back on his outburst as the beginning of the end of the Republican Party, as no longer is there any pretense of them actually representing the American people. One hundred fifteen of his radical right wing cohorts had earlier signed a statement to this effect but only he had the courage to say it on camera for all to see.
Rep. Barton, who would be chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee had the GOP won in November, had a fit of honesty during the hearings investigating the tragic Gulf oil spill caused by BP”s greed. Proven during testimony from rig survivors, BP cut every corner, pushed every limit, failed to complete engineering, disregarded every warning sign of trouble while forcing subcontractors Halliburton and Transocean to drill faster, skip vital tests and to not stop to repair broken annular seals or blowout preventers. The resulting uncontrolled release of gases blew up and sank the rig, killing 11 American workers and causing the worst environmental disaster in history.
Republicans had been itching since the first day to make this President Obama”s fault. Their “news” outlet, Fox, began asking the question “Is this Obama”s Katrina?” on the first day. After the requisite time of about two weeks they switched to “This is Obama”s Katrina!” All the other corporate-owned media, not wanting to get left behind, echoed the theme dutifully. They all publicized every “tweet” and “facebook” blurb from “our nations” greatest energy expert,” Sarah Palin. The truth is that Obama must bear some of the guilt, as he failed to fire every Bush appointee on his first day in office, instead allowing their lax oversight of BP to continue.
Exxon promised the people of Alaska in 1989 they had nothing to worry about because they had Exxon”s word they “would be made whole.” They went as far as to tell Alaskans they were lucky it was Exxon because they were so trustworthy! Sadly, we now know that while they made these statements, echoed word for word by BP, the reality was they pulled every legal trick in the book to fight, delay, reduce and avoid any financial responsibility. Before a single cent was paid out by Exxon, over 8,000 victims, 30 percent of them, had died. After nearly 20 years of court battles, Exxon managed to get the damages originally awarded reduced by 90 percent, paying 10 cents on the dollar, not accounting for 20 years of inflation.
President Obama went to bat for the people of the Gulf region knowing that Exxon had established a horrible precedent. Much to his credit, he convinced BP to place $20 billion in escrow, to be administered by a neutral third party so the victims could be paid in a prompt manner, free of legal delaying tactics.
Enter Rep. Barton, who took the opportunity to publicly denounce Obama, accusing him of shaking down poor BP, turning the tables and making BP appear to be the victim instead of the perpetrator. The official Republican Party line is that this was “a natural disaster” as though it had not been caused by BP”s reckless, negligent behavior!
Democrats had been struggling to appeal to those in the middle of the political spectrum. Republicans had been using their dominance of the media to promote the illusion of actually representing the people, while they did all they could to protect the banking sector and industry from regulation. Obama had done little to prove otherwise and was struggling. I predict you will see clips of Joe Barton shilling for BP thousands of times before the November election and Obama will fire, not allow the industry hacks in government to retire, from now on. This was the moment that exposed the truth in black and white. Years from now it will be studied as the moment the illusion was ripped away and it all began to unravel for the GOP. RIP.
Lowell Grant is a weekly columnist for the Record-Bee. E-mail him at c21vintage@aol.com.
