"Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking."

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas made an apology yesterday to BP CEO Tony Hayward that he was sorry for the shakedown from the current administration over the $20 Billion escrow fund. He said it would just be a slush fund.... He later retracted his apology after some Republicans berated him.

I've heard both sides yesterday and today; liberals were enraged, some conservatives were embarressed and some conservatives sided with Barton's statement.

My thoughts? Yes, BP has really screwed up here. There are strong indications that they cut really important corners to save money. They put profits over safety, and the results? Eleven deaths and the worst environmental disaster in American history. Did they think it could happen? Evidently not. They were careless, so it's like manslaughter, but involuntary manslaughter. I doubt they would've made a move that would cut their company's worth in half, and have their future uncertain. It also seems that they were not telling the whole truth in the beginning of the gusher. It was first reported that 1,000 gallons a day were spilling, and then 5,000 gallons. (We now hear estimates like 10,000 gallons a day.) They knew it was much more, but since they are fined for the amount of oil, they weren't 'spilling.' (pun intended!) They just stayed quiet, obviously trying to minimize losses. But had we known that that amount was leaking, more could have been done in the beginning. Like getting a lot of boats and berms and skimmers and whatever else SHOULD'VE been ready for an emergency plan, which there was not. We now know the other oil companies had the exact same backup plan - NONE. What a nightmare... for everybody...

But back to Barton... my thoughts are that if we had a trustable administration in charge, I would feel a lot better about what can be done to mitigate this. But we have Chicago thuggery in the White House, so Barton's fear, along with some conservatives, is that this escrow amount will be another liberal slush fund to pay to their cronies to reward them. They've already said some of it will go to healthcare. AND they are the ones who are in charge of dealing it out. I understand that no one wants to be caught up in lawsuits for decades in trying to get a payout. So my answer would be to have a special committee of non-political people put in charge of doling out these billions of dollars instead of going to the liberal's pet projects like the 'stimulus' money did. You see, we already have a recent precedent on just how much we can trust them with the cookie jar...