Via
Greg SargentTo that end, DNC spox Hari Sevugan emails a statement trying to tell the larger story here by saying it goes well beyond Barton:
Republicans may want to throw Joe Barton under the bus, but he's not the only one that has come to the defense of BP against Administration attempts to hold the company accountable to the families and small businesses of the Gulf for their recklessness. With their opposition to lifting the liability cap on all oil companies, the $20 billion accountability fundand legislation to ensure that we are never put in this position again by our reliance on oil and oil companies, Republicans have systematically and inexorably taken the side of Big Oil.
This does go far beyond Barton. House conservatives have blasted the escrow fund as a "Chicago-style political shakedown," and Michele Bachmann, a national Tea Party lightening rod, has denounced it as "
a redistribution-of-wealth fund."
Every now and then a gaffe comes along that really cuts through the noise and perfectly crystallizes the argument one side is trying to make, driving the debate with a whole new level of velocity and momentum. Barton's apology, with its extraordinary public display of solicitiousness and even pity towards the despised BP, even as the country is suffering wrenching losses from a major disaster of BP's making, is one of those moments.
Without a full apology and retraction from Barton, and a strong and convincing disavowal from GOP leaders, it's hard to see how this story's potency goes away.
:wow:
Edited to add more from Sargent.
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