Joe Conason: Ripping the Populist Mask Off GOPBP

[flpoljunkie]

Ripping the populist mask off GOPBP
Did Barton's brain malfunction? Does Barbour know what "escrow" means? Why does Bachmann hate fishermen? Ask them

BY JOE CONASON

With their manic, absurd defenses of BP, certain leading Republicans (echoed by Fox News commentators) have achieved levels of self-parody far too exaggerated for a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. Everyone understands that politicians of both parties sometimes stooge for corporations. But Haley Barbour, Michele Bachmann and Joe Barton, among others, have said things about the British oil giant -- and the $20 billion escrow fund to compensate Deepwater Horizon damages -- that could only be uttered by someone truly stupid. Or someone who thinks the rest of us are truly stupid.

As a GOP representative from Houston, Barton should be expected to act like an oil industry rent-boy. That is his essential identity and purpose in life, and that is why he apologized to BP chairman Tony Hayward for the "shakedown" perpetrated against the company by President Obama. But there was no shakedown nor was there, as some conservatives have suggested, any violation of the corporation's constitutional rights. The president has no power to prevent BP from defending claims in court, nor can he prevent the Justice Department from indicting BP executives on criminal charges if sufficient evidence exists to do so. The establishment of the escrow fund was entirely voluntary, and indeed many observers believe that the decision to create it was motivated as much by self-interest and public relations as by compassion or guilt.

Haley Barbour too has behaved like an abject servant of the oil bidness for his entire public career -- and he has seen no reason to change just because an endless tide of sludge is washing up on the shores of the state he misgoverns. From the beginning of the disaster, Barbour has tried to minimize the effects of the spill and make excuses for BP, but he has outdone himself in a fit of indignation over the escrow fund. According to him, it will make full restitution to the Gulf's beleaguered workers, fishermen and business owners less likely, because it will reduce the profits BP needs to pay out damages. Of course, if $20 billion is already in escrow, then the injured parties need not worry about where the money will come from. But don't try to make sense of Barbour's argument, because you can't.

Then there is Bachmann, who represents a district in Minnesota and therefore cannot be excused for standing up on behalf of a regional economic interest. To her, the escrow fund represents a scheme for "redistribution" of wealth -- as if the people who will receive money from it are undeserving welfare recipients and as if BP had done nothing to injure them. She derided the BP executives who will pay into the escrow account as "chumps."

more...

http://www.salon.com/news/louisiana_oil_spill/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/06/17/populist

[mrcheerful]

1. Well you can't really blame the GOBP for thinking americans are stupid, after all it

wasn't smart people that voted them into office after all the stupid things they have said and done before they were elected.

[flpoljunkie]

2. Wouldn't work, though, if media did their job.

But, alas, they do not. They are complicit. They should, with very few exceptions, hang their heads in shame.

[mrcheerful]

4. Sure it would work these people don't watch news for information they watch news to find crap that f

their own world views and beliefs. That is why any news other then what Fox feeds them is liberal media. What Fox did was shape a news station that matches the wing nut belief system. Like I posted else where, the tag liberal media came out in 1967 when the media turned against what the military was telling them as truth. These people believe that the VN war was lost because the media was reporting all of the bad stuff going on in VN and it turned the American population against the war.

Unlike liberals/progressives, these wing nuts cherry pick everything they read, watch or hear for stuff that fits their beliefs anything reported that goes against those beliefs is tossed out as liberal garbage. Saying it's the media's fault is a cop out as it lets the wing nuts off the hook for their beliefs. These wing nuts are crazy insane stupid people that refuse to see that the people they put into office aren't looking out for their best interests.

Take the abortion issue as an example, Reagan could have put an end to it with a stroke of his pen, did he? Or shrub and his rubber stamp congress who never once went against anything shrub wanted, yet he couldn't have put an end to abortion even after he put conservative judges in the courts? Yet these stupid voters keep believing that the R's will end abortion, reality is the R's use abortion as a vote getting talking point and its a wedge issue that works in their favor so why would they end abortion? Liberals know this yet wing nuts believe that it's liberal judges and the Democratic party stopping the R's from ending abortions, how stupid is that?

In fact when a news caster said it on the news, these people cried out "liberal news its lying again". You can't fix stupid and stupid believes what they want not what media tells them.

[Laelth]

3. Finally, the GOBP is being honest.

They love big business and they hate the American people. Now, this is clear for all to see.

:dem:

-Laelth