Dems to Run on Joe Barton Campaign Platform

At The Hill, "Dems Mount Effort to Label Conservative GOPs as ‘The BP 114’." Plus, watch Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel cling to Rep. Joe Barton like a life preserver:

There's been panic on both sides of the aisle, actually. It's an election year. Barton got skittish, others in Congress jumped at the political opportunity, and the media's not giving Americans the full story. For example, see IBD, "An Apology to Be Truly Sorry About":

Rep. Joe Barton says what everyone knows is true and his own party threatens to kick him out of his committee seat. We expected cynical political opportunism from Democrats, but not from Republican leaders.

Where are we as a society when the truth is treated as a something that can't be uttered in public?

Barton, the Texas Republican, apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward, now relieved of his duties, during Thursday's House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing for what he characterized as a "shakedown" by the White House in forcing the company to create a $20 billion victims' compensation fund.

He also declared that he was "ashamed" of the White House's tactics, and called it "a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown."

"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," he said.

Naturally, the Democrats went hard after Barton. And the media were happy to aid the cause. And just as naturally, other comments by Barton have not received as much attention. Without having watched the hearing or read the transcript, how many people know that Barton said:

"There is no question ... that BP made decisions that objective people think compromise safety. There is no question that BP is liable for the damages."

Or that he told Hayward "we want to hold (BP) responsible, do what we can to make the liable parties pay for the damages."

Just as every lawmaker should, Barton simply wants the government to follow our due process system ...

RTWT.