Good For You, Joe Barton
Say it's not so, Joe—that you're actually sorry for mussing up the Obama administration over its treatment of BP.
Congressman Barton, sir, never mind what the party leaders made you say in riposte to your own verbal thrust last week. You were right the first time—right to call out the White House for tactics extralegal at best, embarrassing to many who continue for some odd reason to look to the Oval Office for moral leadership.
The White House's behavior has the odor of a dead cow. That's the bottom line—a more urgent matter than Barton's decision to air his dead-on appraisal in the context of an "apology" to Tony Hayward and his company.
Hayward and the BP wimps who rolled over, scrubbed their projected dividend, and acceded to the president's demand for a $20 billion escrow fund deserve a kick in the pants more they do than an expression of regret. Nor, as Texas Congressman Joseph Barton acknowledged in his public declaration to Hayward, should the company escape reproach for bad decisions.
The worst thing about Joe Barton's "apology" (coupled with his apology for the apology) is the implication abroad in political and media circles that Barton was a jerk to have "apologized" the first time.
The implication draws attention, alas, from the truth Barton addressed. Obama's attempts at intimidating BP warrant more than a passing glance. Barton was right: this thing sets "a terrible precedent for the future." A couple of terrible precedents.
Precedent No. 1: Trying a company (for that matter any entity) in the media when the imputed injury is large enough. That BP is responsible for the spill seems clear enough. Responsible in what way? Responsible to what degree, and at what cost? Don't we care to find out?
Precedent No. 2: Inspiring politicians (as if they need the inspiration) to get out in front of the lynch mob, throwing nooses over tree branches.
The president of the United States, whoever he may be at a given moment, carries about him a presumption held over from more antique times. The presumption is that the president is a grown-up, capable of keeping his cool in tough situations, wanting to hear both sides of a disputed question before rendering judgment. Instead, the present president of the United States gave it out from the Oval Office that, hell, he knew who the bad guys were in this spill business, and it sure wasn't his guys; plus, the bad guys were—shut up; don't argue—going to put $20 billion to cover reparations for their crimes. Lewis Carroll's Red Queen would have understood the plan as well as the terminology: sentence first, trial afterward.
Not only that, the president of the United States asserted no legal authority for his claim to BP's money. He demanded it—in his best stagecoach-robber mode: Whoa, pardner; get those hands up; now throw down that box. The president of the United States, or his advisers, or both, evidently thought it meaningless to assert their authority for such a demand. They asserted it. Any more questions, Sonny? Good.
BP certainly stood and delivered, after the approved manner of stagecoach passengers with hands extended to heaven and a .45 aimed in their general direction. You can understand. They wanted no more trouble. They had enough of that as it was, much of it self-generated.
Congressman Joe Barton, depicted by Democratic operatives and their media claque as a patsy for the oil industry, for obvious reasons didn't like the smell of the thing. He said so. Democrats profess delight. Said Rahm Emanuel the other day: this Barton thing is a "gift" to the Democrats. We'll wrap it around his neck and the necks of all Republicans.
Does that not tell us what's going on here? The power of politics exerted in behalf of more power for particular politicians: this is what goes on. Don't justify. Attack, attack, attack! Joe Barton could have stood to say a whole lot more than he actually managed to say.
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Tagged as: Cultural Revolutions, Gulf oil spill, Joe Barton, Obama
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Eleven deaths and ongoing damage -- likely to be long term -- to the Gulf environment, economy, culture, and community require the US or the international community to visit the crime scene, haul the perpetrators, caught red-handed, into custody, and investigate them for, at the very least, fraud and negligent homicide. Probable cause is abundantly provided by BP's drilling proposal, which, according to Naomi Klein in the Guardian, assured American regulators that there was "little risk" in their offshore drilling. That any leak damage would be small, because "currents and microbial degradation would remove the oil from the water column or dilute the constituents to background levels." That fish would survive, because of "the capability of adult fish and shellfish to avoid a spill and to metabolize hydrocarbons." That there was "little risk of contact or impact to the coastline," because the distance was too great for the oil to flow. Contrary to Murchison, moral leadership, requires Obama to zealously investigate BP and the responsible government regulators, not to fiddle with while our Rome burns.
Ivan, which Constitution have you read? There is a difference between the public blather of the President and his Constitutional duties (which he ignores). Why don't you quote the articles and amendments which support your claim? And, if you can't, go post on a forum read by fools.
Apparently BP reads the same Constitution that Attorney General Holder reads, because the multinational quickly accepted the federal government's terms, while the criminal investigation gains speed. On June 1, "USA Today" reported that Holder had opened a criminal investigation of the BP oil spill, based on possible violations of several federal laws 1) The Clean Water Act, which carries civil penalties and fines as well as criminal penalties; 2) The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which can be used to hold parties liable for cleanup costs and reimbursement for government efforts; 3) The Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Endangered Species Acts, which provide penalties for injury and death to wildlife and bird species; and 4) Other traditional criminal statutes. Article 1, Section 8 gave Congress the wide power to enact these laws, for specific purposes and general welfare. The way the Supreme Court reads it, Article 2, Section 2, allows the President to direct his cabinet officers' duties with great latitude. These duties include, under the agencies listed above, regulating BP. However, neither you nor I interpret the Constitution nor have any say in the selection of its lifetime appointments. As long as an unaccountable Supreme Court (especially one with, to put it mildly, partisan justices) interprets the law of the land according to its whims, the word "fools" might better describe adults who fantasize that their ideology and the Constitution are the same thing.
Second, the Constitution recognizes the general welfare of the United States, not the notoriously unsafe BP, who, using the CIA in Iran in 1953, had shown the world its lack of respect for international law, the US Constitution, and American values. Yet strict constitutionalist ideologues, like Murchison, want the US, who after WWII rebuilt Britain and Western Europe, to stand aside in a national emergency, as BP repays the favor by -- possibly through criminal negligence -- wounding the Gulf area's culture, economy, environment, and communities.
The emergency is the Gulf's health and welfare, not Murchison's ideology. If the solution is not to force BP into cleaning up its deadly expensive mess ASAP, what, pray tell, is it Jeff?
Eric Holder was always free to open up criminal investigations against BP, but when it is done during government attempts to convince BP to open a compensation fund...
My understanding of English law is enough to point out that threatening someone with a legal act in order to obtain consent to an action is criminal blackmailing.
Studying contract law in first year college shows that this could easily be an act that falls somewhere between coercion and undue influence. An authority who enforces law is always in apparent authority to force his will on anybody, and the burden of proof will always fall to him to prove that he did not coerce anybody.
The criminal charges against the company would stand, and the wrongful actions by the authority excercising the legal act would also stand.
None of this helps clean up the mess itself. It does help give the government a good status in showing that it twisted some arms to appease the public. Other than that, the United States government obviously does not know what to do with this mess, else it would not send its President in shirt sleeves to look around and go back.
But no, I don't feel sorry for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company which is singularly responsible for first turning Iran into a US fiefdom, and then leading to extremists running the country.
@3. fascinating! Have you subscribed to the Chronicles yet?
@4. Obama knows how other countries have successfully have prevented oil spills from becoming disasters, just as he knows how other countries have successfully prevented bank failures from setting off a worldwide job-sucking depression. Unfortunately, he has the usual American politician's preference for corporate money over American interests. In this case, America's best interest was to seal the leak quickly, using, if needed, aggressive methods, up to nuking the well, at BP's expense, but under federal control.
@5. Yes, I have happily subscribed, on and off, since my local Borders dropped Chronicles in the Nineties. Most recently last year.
@6. Obama does not know anything about anything. His appetite for destruction is insatiable. His vacuity and disingenuousness is legion. A drug addict or a vampire take your pick.
Gee, I hope no one was expecting the taxpayer to pick up the tab to clean up this mess, of a foreign, government-owned oil company no less. What if it was Hugo Chavez's Venezuela-owned CITGO whose offshore rig exploded in the Gulf and leaked its dirty oil on Texas beaches, would Mr. Murchinson or Rep. Barton feel the same, or worse?
Since such oil companies have benefited from government assistance and largess over the years going all the way back to the Hot Oil Act of 1935 to the oil-depreciation allowance on their tax forms, paying for clean-up is their responsibility for the mess they themselves created. No such fund was set-up after the Exxon Valdez disaster and Exxon fought average-Joe fishermen in Alaska, you know, the kinds of people who vote for Sarah Palin, in court for years to keep from paying little to any compensation to them after the oil spill in Prince William's Sound ruined their livelihoods.
What's needed is what Ron Paul said, less government in the Gulf, either to keep the clean-up from taking place or to give companies like BP sweetheart deals.
The foreign company is liable for cleaning up the mess, especially if its explosion counts as a criminal act.
Murchison and others are discussing the compensation fund for the people. Obviously, those people can press the charges themselves, as a collective group or otherwise.
But where is it said that the government should forcefully take their money for compensation? That isn't legal. Either way, the point is moot, because BP gave its own consent for a compensation fund, but that consent still may have been unlawfully obtained through a little armtwisting.
Devil the benefit of law, Sir Thomas More,.etc,.etc,.et.c
I would ask what alternative arrangement can be made to make sure BP compensates all those who they have damaged. Should every shrimper and fisherman in the Gulf, their livelihoods so damaged by the BP oil spill, be expected to bring suit to BP? Or every owner of a beach home or condo in the Redneck Riviera and West Florida who won't be renting this year and beyond? There are tens of thousands of tertiary businesses that will feel the effects of the damage wrought by the damaged BP rig. What the Obama regime has engineered may not be the most elegant form of republican government but it might be fair, believe it or not. In the end, perhaps $ 20 billion miight not be enough.
"Obama knows how other countries have successfully have prevented oil spills from becoming disasters, just as he knows how other countries have successfully prevented bank failures from setting off a worldwide job-sucking depression. Unfortunately, he has the usual American politician’s preference for corporate money over American interests. In this case, America’s best interest was to seal the leak quickly, using, if needed, aggressive methods, up to nuking the well, at BP’s expense, but under federal control."
Ivan: I must say that you seem a small child defending your daddy in a schoolyard dispute. Obama can save all, if only everyone would get out of his way. Or is that, "His" way? You miss your critics' points. The bottom line is that authority for "the great shakedown" cannot be found anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Certainly, the DoJ is authorized to pursue civil or criminal actions against BP where laws were violated, but only while preserving the DUE PROCESS RIGHTS of the defendants. Threatening to "break his knees" if the BP chairman fails to "fork over" the payola in no way preserves anyone's due process rights. And, by the way, crushing the American economy and financial system, leading a federal takeover of over 51% of private industry, and promoting a "new reality" where no one (no person, no nation) has more than another, used to be thought to be the goals of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao--odd that our own President and his Radical Left cronies are the ones who have succeeded where a billion-plus communists failed.
Derek: With respect to civil remedies, a plaintiff may seek compensation based on proof of liability through either individual action or class action. I am sure the trial lawyer bar is coming out of the woodwork all over the place to take 25% or more of this action.