House of Eratosthenes

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday,” Barton said. “I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown.”

He complained that “the attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people, [is] participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that’s unprecedented in our nation’s history, that’s got no legal standing, and which sets, I think, a terrible precedent for the future.”

“I apologize,” Barton told [BP President Anthony] Hayward. “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. So I apologize…I’m speaking now totally for myself,” he noted. “I’m not speaking for the Republican Party.”

Charles Krauthammer says this was the politically most stupid statement of the entire year. This may explain why Barton was forced to retract these comments. The whole episode really is the first significant problem the Republicans have had in re-taking Congress.

So if you’re talking politics, I suppose I would have to agree. But waitasecond. Suppose, somehow, BP had managed to cause this much damage to the Gulf or to some other piece of Creation, without suffering any of this tarnish to their image. There would be no slush fund; there would be no shakedown. Now turn it around. Suppose BP did the damage and then managed to hang it all on someone else…a contractor, maybe. Or suppose someone else did the damage and hung it on BP. The extortion would be done against whoever got the black eye, not against whoever did the damage. You know it, I know it, we all know it.

Oh, and would anybody like to step forward and express their brimming confidence that the $20 billion will be effectively used to repair the environmental damage?

So this isn’t about the fact that BP screwed up…although, for the record, they most certainly did. If the cost of putting things right exceeds their worth, then I see no earthly reason why they shouldn’t be subjected to corporate euthanasia and parted out like an old car at a junkyard.

Leaving that aside though, Barton’s original statement was completely right. The precedent is horrible. In fact, the spectacle of the Congressman being bludgeoned into apologizing the very same day raises very disturbing possibilities. The appearance — to me, anyway — is that Republicans and democrats alike who work in the beltway are putting together a phantom industry. It is an avenue toward fantastic profits to be enjoyed by the non-producers.

I know, it’s the beltway. I really shouldn’t be surprised.

Is it entirely unreasonable of me to suggest that such a phantom industry of non-producers, should perhaps enjoy all of the power of real industries but no more than that? Think about what we’re looking at here, it is utterly reprehensible. We already saw it with the Tobacco settlement. Now this phony industry is bullying Congressmen who speak inconvenient truths.

Think about any other business doing this. Grabbing a Congressman by the lapels and giving him the “Don’t ever take sides against The Family again, Fredo” speech.

I’ll just come out and say it. There is not a single thing wrong with what Congressman Barton said. Well, except perhaps for the apology. Krauthammer’s right, that was dumb. Even if you agreed with it, and I most certainly don’t, it was not Barton’s to give.

But “shakedown” is absolutely accurate. Who can give me a qualifying criteria for that word, that does not apply here? Who can provide me with some assurances that this won’t change the landscape of corporate America forever? BP was subjected to entirely legitimized extortion, the chosen enforcement angle of a brand new subterranean alternative legal framework.

Not because they killed fish, shrimp, birds and whales. Not because they despoiled beaches. But because they were, in the moment at hand, unpopular. So who’s next?

I’ll say something else; something that I hope just cuts right to the quick. Unkindly.

Our nation’s Constitution provides us with two critically important assurances: That We, The People will be in charge of our government — that they will fear us, rather than the other way around — and that, once we are put in charge of our own destinies, we will enjoy an absolute and unfettered right to our own profits and property.

I wish we could muster up just a fraction of the righteous outrage to safeguard the latter, as we do to protect the former. I could go up to Capitol Hill tomorrow and say “I don’t think you should be able to vote if you haven’t paid attention to what’s gong on,” and people would be ready to tar & feather me. You know they would. I could threaten to take the vote away from…people with very low IQ’s. People who don’t know the name “Barack Obama.” People who won’t take the time to go out and vote unless ACORN offers them a ride and a free pack of smokes. Anybody. I make noise about disenfranchising someone, and critics will come out of the woodwork.

Politicians make all these restrictions on how much money the “corporations” can make, and when they can keep it…it goes without saying all these restrictions apply to everybody else…and we just, aw well, that’s alright. Carry on.

[…] Freeberg speaks for me. So this isn’t about the fact that BP screwed up…although, for the record, they most certainly did. If the cost of putting things right exceeds their worth, then I see no earthly reason why they shouldn’t be subjected to corporate euthanasia and parted out like an old car at a junkyard. […]
- DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Congressman Barton Apologizes for His Apology | 06/18/2010 @ 03:32
Krautman ought to be making the apology. He tells us that beginning with the bank bailout before the election and then with Obama nationalizing the car companies, this a “now a tradition and a bad one”, so we ought to stop “after this one”.
And maybe I ought to stop robbing banks, but now is not a good time with the cashier stuffing my bag.
- jamzw | 06/18/2010 @ 08:02
[…] Best Sentence XCI Mount Schlussel is Erupting Congressman Barton Apologizes for His Apology Patterico Destroys the Lies of a Liberal Blogger “Do You Fully Support the Obama […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 06/18/2010 @ 17:52

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Congressman Barton Apologizes for His ApologyThursday, June 17th, 2010

Congressman Barton Apologizes for His Apology
Thursday, June 17th, 2010