Better Left Unsaid

I have decent political instincts and am a fair barometer of voter thinking and can tell the gentle reader without a Pew or Gallup poll that Texas Congressman Joe Barton has just given sinking Democrats a lifeline- a gift from God. When Rush Limbaugh answered Michael J. Fox who had interjected himself into campaigns for the US Senate for Ben Cardin in Maryland against Michael Steele and in Missouri for Claire McCaskill, I knew he had made a mistake that would be turned into Limbaugh attacks invalid and advance the Democrat campaigns. Ultimately, both Democrats won and I believe in no small part because Rush had made himself the villain. Sometimes, the less said, the better and I can not conceive of how Joe Barton's apology to BP will be anything but fodder for Democrat commercials for the November campaign. It portrays the GOP in the worst light- as corporate shills, even though, in reality, Democrats are every bit the proponents of despicable corporate welfare as Republicans ever were. As regular readers here may note, I disdain the dole dwellers who parasite hard-working Americans by living off America's welfare roles. Well, I equally despise (or actually hate more) corporate welfare seekers who drain municipal, state, and Federal treasuries more than the poor ever did by many magnitudes over. George Will termed these corporate actions "rent seeking" where a company tries to gain a subsidy, competitive advantage, or put a competitor at a disadvantage through the actions of government. And now Joe Barton, through one statement that need never have been uttered, has made himself and by extension the entire Republican Party the poster boy for rent seeking. Apologize to a rogue foreign-domiciled company that has been cited by US government regulators almost one hundred times more than its nearest competitor 760 to 8 over the past decade. BP who has experienced more worker deaths in this well tragedy and a refinery explosion in Texas than all its competitors in the oil industry put together in the last three years. Apologize to the corporation whose leaders say they "can not wait to get back to their normal life" and that we are "small people". Nuts to you BP and to Congressman Barton for apologizing to you.