Apparently BP is starting to find some defenders:
Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said a fund BP Plc agreed to establish after meeting with President Barack Obama yesterday amounted to “a $20 billion shakedown.”
“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House,” Barton said today as a House Energy Committee panel began a hearing on BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Due process wasn’t followed during negotiations between BP and administration officials, Barton said.
This is an example of how runaway partisanship can help Democrats. Under normal circumstances, everyone would be pounding on BP as hard as they can. And for the most part, that’s what’s happened so far. But as Dems push ever harder, the natural GOP instinct to (a) protect business and (b) instinctively oppose everything Democrats do, is going to surface. Keep up the BP-bashing a little bit longer and eventually, just out of reflex, Fox News and the Republican Party will be calling for Obama to make payments to them. Should be fun.
