Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) has been widely condemned for telling BP executives yesterday that he is “sorry” for the Obama administration’s “shakedown” of their company, which resulted in a $20 billion escrow fund help Gulf families suffering from the oil spill. While the Republican leadership realized the potential political fallout and quickly distanced themselves from Barton’s comments, right-wing pundits rushed to Barton’s defense:
– PAT BUCHANAN: “Barton made a very courageous statement in my judgment. … To have anyone stand up and even indirectly defend [BP] and say that they were a victim of a shakedown shows some political courage.”
– INGRAHAM: “I think Joe Barton, before he apologized, had a legitimate point.”
– NAPOLITANO: “That is a classic shakedown. The threat to do something that you don’t have the authority to do. ”
– KILMEADE: “One Congressman calling the BP compsensation fund a ’shakedown,’ but does he have a point?”
– GINGRICH: “The president is directly engaged in extorting money from a company.”
– VARNEY: “It is Hugo Chavez-like, is it not? To sieze a private company’s assets.”
Watch a compilation of conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, Fox News analyst Laura Ingraham, Fox News Business host Andrew Napolitano, Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Fox News Business host Stuart Varney, and right-wing radio host Mark Levin:
Levin went on to say that GOP leadership’s treatment of the Barton incident made him fear the “Republican party in the House will not have the courage to do what needs to be done should it win the majority in November” to resist the “increasingly tyrannical administration.”
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