Joe Barton and the Betrayal of the Republicans
Deborah B. Sloan writes at American Thinker:
There is no greater injustice than punishment of a man for doing something good, and no more loathsome cowardice than when those responsible for defending good sacrifice their cause to accommodate an uncompromising evil. But this type of betrayal is not uncommon for the Republican leadership, and it happened again last week in Congress.
Thursday's House committee hearings with BP CEO Tony Hayward consisted mostly of the empty political grandstanding one would expect from this type of proceedings, characterized by Mark Levin as Soviet-style show trials.
There was an exception, however, when Representative Joe Barton spoke out against the Obama regime for extorting $20 billion from BP -- without due process -- to be distributed by an Obama appointee as compensation no only to Gulf residents harmed by the oil leak, but also those left unemployed by Obama's moratorium by fiat on all offshore drilling operations.
This was not to say that the Gulf residents shouldn't be compensated, but that the manner in which the funds were expropriated is reprehensible, and it is outrageous for the government to force a private corporation to finance a moratorium imposed by the president.
Update: See also, "Bless Joe Barton, Good-Bye GOP," published at The Pearcey Report.
