"That was no gaffe..That was a philosophy"

Kudos to Rahm Emmanuel for summing up Joe Barton's apology to BP. For a nicer response, check out Joe Biden's retort on the the White House website.

Correction from previous post. Since I was always tormented by the Republican Study Group, which was a House think tank for unemployable right-wingers, I wrongly concluded it was their talking points the GOP were using. But it was the Republican Study Commitee, which makes it worse because it consists of over 100 members of the House.

Also on the Escrow Fund. While BP did float the idea first to the Republican Congressional Leadership, it was being countered by a lobby effort by the Chamber of Commerce, who wanted the federal government to pay all the clean-up costs. Why? Well, because the chairman of Massey coal mines sits on the board and he fears a host of penalties for his dozens of unsafe mines. Also the escrow fund sets a precedent that oil companies are resisting.

The Escrow Fund does not include the cleanup costs BP has to pay. The Fund is only for workers and businesses who were hurt by the spill. BP is currently running around to banks to raise about $50 billion for the total bill.

Raising the liability cap has become a big issue in town. The issue really is moot. The liability cap for oil spills is not in effect if there are cases of negligence or recklessness by oil companies. Republican resistance makes sense because they fear oil companies may face greater costs down the line. But in the case of BP there would be no liability cap because the testimony so far indicates at least recklessness.

Come On Down. You have to admire Haley Barbour's willful denial of the crisis. As of yesterday, he said the beaches were great. I guess you wouldn't be bothered by sea turtles, dolphins or manatees because they are all dead. Today, Haley said the moratorium on deepsea drilling was worse than the oil spill.

Jimmy Buffett is going to give a free concert in Alabama to show the rest of the country that the Gulf is fine. The problem is that the oil now has invaded manatee areas in Alabama.

Meanwhile former Republican Charlie Crist has jumped out to a double-digit lead against teabagger and oil fiend Marco Rubio. Crist supported the ban on offshore driling. It's interesting that we haven't heard from Jeb Bush because as Governor he opposed his brother's policy on offshore oil development because of environmental concerns.

E.J. Dionne finally gave himself permission in today's Washington Post to write about the atavistic conservatism that has re-emerged in the Republican Party. He was encouraged by Chris Matthews' MSNBC show on the rise of the Hard Right in America. Dionne points to the long history of conservative's conspiracy theories about the federal government. I think he's wrong that Barton sided with BP over the government because of this bias. It's like Emmanuel said the Republican philosophy is for large corporations over the government. Or as we saw under George W. large corporations actually running the government.

An historical footnote for Baby-Boomers. JFK himself encouraged the book and the film of Seven Days in May because he thought a military coup on the United States was possible. The reason was that JFK fired General Walker and later Curtis LeMay for their efforts to recruit John Birch Society members into the military. You will recall General Walker was the subject of an assassination attempt in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. He was later portrayed by the great Sterling Hayden in Winter Kills,where Jeff Bridges, the younger brother of the slain President, searches for his brother's assassin and wanders to Hayden's ranch where there are military maneuvers. JFK also may have remembered the businessmen's coup attempt against FDR in the 1930s. This was a plot, which included teabag funders Koch Industries, that involved WWI veterans who would throw FDR out of the White House.

FDR handled the plot with cool. He called the millionaires into the White House and read out the names of all those people involved, paused, and then said, "Gentlemen, the plan just won't work."

In short, the world of the Right today harks back to the weird conspiracy theories of the 1950 and early 1960s.

The Sunday New York Times ran an article on the impasse in Congress on the jobs bill. They noted that Senate Republicans plausibly used the deficit as an excuse for opposing. But then they examined what happened with a fairly innocuous House bill that called for lower taxes on small businesses. This is an Apple Pie bill, which generally sweeps through the House. But only four Republicans, those champions of capitalism, voted for it. One of them is Mike Castle, former Governor of Delaware and the presumed next Senator from that state. He lamented his party's failure to compromise on such measures and said this was harmful to the country. But Virginia's own Virginia Foxx, the woman who said ,"Obama was a great threat to America than Al Qaeda", claimed that Republicans will oppose all Democratic laws because "we have different views on what made America great". OK.

Lousiana's Governor Bobby Jindal has filed a suit in court against the moratorium on deepwater drilling. For legal beagles, he and others have filed for an injunction against the ban. Notice how Republicans did not do the same on the healthcare bill. If they had any basis then, they could have filed for an injunction. Little Bobby's great barrier island scheme or berms has run up against investigative reporters. Apparently, environmentalists in the state claim it would not be effective against the oil spill and others note that the projected $330 billion (?) cost (I can't believe that figure) would benefit the dredging industry, which are financial supporters of the Governor.

Howard Fineman said that Jindal was acting like General Patton running around the state. But President Obama slapped him down in his Friday address to the nation when he called on the Gulf's Governors to mobilize their National Guard immediately and stop waiting. Apparently, General Jindal has failed to do this despite President Obama's request in his Oval Office speech.

The conservative blogosphere has not let up on blasting Obama's extortion of the $20 billion escrow fund. I guess they didn't get the memo with all the Republican walking back that line. John Fund looked like he was about to have a moment of lucidity. John said that depending on the next President we could become a Third World country. I thought he might have been alluding to George W's record and the horrifying prospect of Sarah Palin. No, he was saying if the government required all companies to pay for their misdeeds, then we would be driving corporations away from America. He cited the possibility that Toyota would face such devastating penalties for the stuck gas pedal that it would have to go out of business. You see these are just the risks we must take if we are going to keep our economy going. The new philosophy of "No Fault Capitalism".

So we should just run CEOs for public office. This new GOP strategy is being tested with Carly Fiorina in California. Apparently, the CEOs of Oracle, Netflex,Dell and othe Silicon Valley moguls are openly not supporting Carly because of the horrendous job she did at Hewlett-Packard.

The Good news we can look forward if Republicans take back the House is Rep. Darrell Issa becoming Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committtee. Issa wants to double his staff to 80 to subpoena the Obama administration on everthing and the kitchen sink. "I won't use it to have corporate America live in fear that we're going to subpoena everything. I will use it to get the very information that today the White House is either shredding or not producing." Do we get the Bush Administration's e-mails?