Joe Barton keeps his job as Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. John Boehner:
Following a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers, the top-ranking House Republican told reporters that “Mr. Barton apologized to the members for his poor choice of words, he retracted his statement last week and apologized and the issue is closed.”
I don’t know if this is as stupid as it seems, but it sure seems mighty dumb. I guess Boehner figured that canning Barton wouldn’t have stopped the inevitable ads anyway.
(via)
Hunter Gathers
The GOP is real serious about re-taking the House, aren’t they? Clowns.
Midnight Marauder
No, it’s exponentially more stupid than it seems.
jimBOB
Having Barton resign would show that it’s possible to defeat goopers by creating a controversy, which would be a perversion of The Order Of Things™ in which only wingnut freakouts are supposed to have any political salience.
Just before they lost the House in 2006, there was a question about whether or not Hastert ought to resign over the Foley crap. He really should have, but they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, and got a pasting on election day. This time, they may well destroy their midterm electoral performance, again by being stupid assholes. We can hope, anyway.
lawguy
I’m always interested in these “appologies.” Just what is he appologizing for? That he spoke what he believed? That it is obvious that he is a tool? That some MRDD constitutant might actually realize that he is simply an employee of these major corporations?
Josh
This is good news for John of England.
fucen tarmal
you can’t remove barton from his spot, he was the designated guy to deliver the talking points so the echo-chamber could expound at will.
pure theater.
Josh
@fucen tarmal:
This is why I can’t comment seriously here anymore. If Cole & Company have convinced me of one thing, it’s that this whole politics thing is a three-ring circus. I mean, we even have ELEPHANTS and DONKEYS!
How more obvious can it be?
NonyNony
Canning Barton wouldn’t make any sense at this point. The GOP has gone into full bore “Defend BP at all costs” mode. Taking Barton off the committee would send a mixed message and get Baron’s supporters riled up. Among Barton’s supporters are Rush Limbaugh and the very Vocal Minority that seems to control the GOP’s PR agenda these days. So Boehner’s stuck – if he takes Barton off the committee he agitates the Might Wurlizter and gets nothing but grief for the next few months. If he leaves him on the committee he gets attacks from Democrats. He’s used to getting attacks from Democrats and that’s expected, but he’s not willing to take attacks from his own party.
That’s the GOP – they’re very, very good at all lining up and having very good message discipline. Even when the message is fucking stupid.
Chat Noir
I hate these people. I want to see the GOP implode. I hate John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and all the other shitty Republicans for being the immense douche bags that they are and for not taking their roles as legislators seriously.
Eric F
The Repubs seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Well, maybe the GOP stooges don’t actually want to regain control of Congress. Hard to blame them I guess, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be in charge of this clusterfucked country right now.
Brachiator
Republican voters don’t seem to have a big problem with Barton. And Louisiana governor Bobby Jindall is pretty much declaring “Never mind the oil gusher. Drill baby drill.” And, they get to blame Obama anyway. It’s wingnut win-win.
fucen tarmal
@Josh:
and with palin’s uterus, a bonafide clown car!
Zifnab
They’re the pro-BP party. Firing Barton would have just been putting lip stick on the pig at the expense of a powerful and well-connected fund raiser. When the Republicans run in November as the party that wants to fix the economy by not being so mean to mega-corporations, they’re going to have guys like Joe Barton center stage. At least by NOT firing him, they remain ideologically consistent.
And I’ve already talked to a few people who have taken the Haley Barbour stance – that we can’t have BP pay for damages because otherwise BP won’t have the money to pay for the damages. So this flavor of stupid is still selling.
Josh
@Brachiator:
I think this is a case of them thinking, “Well, fuck. These are the only people we can really support right now.”
It’s my Palin Theory. They’re disappointed with her, but they need to keep the lie alive.
EconWatcher
Sadly, I don’t think any of this is going to matter. If we’re still hovering near 10% unemployment this November–and it sure looks like we will be–we’re going to get creamed. They could bring Jeffrey Dahmer back to life and win a district with him.
Comrade Dread
@lawguy: Political apologies can usually be read as the following:
“I’m deeply sorry that my regretful (comments/affair/affair with a prostitute/gay affair/gay three-way with a prostitute and a wetsuit) has caused my
familypolitical career and party such distress and harm.I regret each and every day
(saying this hurtful/offensive/racist/profoundly stupid thing; engaging in sex with that intern/prostitute/gay prostitute/gay dolphin hooker while being railed by a unicorn; taking those corporate funded trips to the Philippeans where the gay dolphin unicorn threeway happened)getting caught by the media.I pray that with God’s help and the support of my family,
we can recover from this terrible ordeal and find healingmy party’s electoral chances won’t be screwed and I can continue my political career or get a nice cushy job as a cable news correspondent.Also, family values…
Joseph Nobles
And he went right out and posted a link to a Spectator “Joe Barton Was Right” story on his Amplify page. He’s pulled it now, but people on Twitter caught it.
NonyNony
@Eric F:
There was a report a month or so ago from a Republican think-tank that basically said “hey, stop trying to take control of Congress – get as many seats as you can without taking the majority because that way it’s easier to fuck with things and you don’t run the risk of a voter backlash against Republicans before 2012 and kill the GOP’s chances for getting the Presidency away from Obama”.
So maybe. Personally I think some of them are major league morons (like Barton) who happen to be lucky enough to be in districts where a Democrat couldn’t win against a rock running as a Republican. And some of the are just political opportunists with no long term interests beyond staying in Congress and living off the perks for as long as they can. Boehner is a mix of both.
Josh
@EconWatcher:
My theory is that once people see who the Republicans are running they may have second thoughts. That’s just me, though. I operate within the confines of reality and common sense, so I may have an advantage over the normal idiot.
@Zifnab:
I…have run into many flavors of stupid about this. One person even threw a Hail Mary to try to tie in George Soros and his evil Sockulist plot to keep the gusher going because it kept him rich while turning us into Commies.
I called him a fucking moron and moved on with my life.
But at night–the voices come back. And they’re all stupid.
JGabriel
@jimBOB:
That never hurt them before.
Not that I disagree about Republican midterm election chances, I just think their failure will be a product of continuing demographic changes, rather than because they’re the same stupid assholes they’ve been for the past 30 years.
.
ellaesther
The issue is closed – for whom, exactly?
I’m not even in the Gulf (or possibly, more to the point, Texas), and dude: The issue ain’t closed for me.
Rekster
You must read the Barton Op-Ed in the Dallas Morning News from Monday regarding the mean old Obama EPA and how they are treating our great state of Texas.
Violet
@ellaesther:
It’s closed for the Republicans. They make the decision as to whether or not Barton keeps his job on the Committee. They’ve decided. Issue is closed.
Since it’s the elected Republicans deciding which of their own people gets the job, there’s not much the rest of us can do about it.
Josh
@Rekster:
The EPA is an easy target because, I suspect, that most Republicans/conservatives don’t really know what it is or what it does.
I find it simply amazing that there are people who care more about short-term financial success at the expense of the health of the community.
Throw away the EPA because it’s mean and makes you spend money complying with clean air/water standards and health protocols. That money should be going to the investors!
Josh
@Violet:
We can make fun of them. To me, that’s good enough.
Joe Barton is so stupid that he thinks square roots are vegetables.
Ah. Sweet catharsis. It tastes like strawberries.
Joseph Nobles
Link to a Weigal screengrab of the Barton tweet unapologetically linking to the Spectator article.
The Grand Panjandrum
Joe Barton will never be confused for the brightest crayon in the box. Here is video of him having the police remove the father of an autistic child from his office. The dad just wanted some answers about Barton’s role in killing the Combating Autism Act.
Barton is a filthy, rotten, no good, scumsucking, atavistic weasel.
Violet
@Josh:
Not only make fun of them, but remind everyone that if the Republicans win the House, that Barton will be applying his “BP wuz robb3d” beliefs to all oil companies.
“You like that oil spill in the Gulf? There’s more where that came from!” The ads just write themselves.
Nellcote
@Rekster:
Linky?
JasonF
Oh, well if he apologized to the members of the Republican caucus, I guess that’s OK then. Because we all know the real aggrieved party here wasn’t the president, who was accused of extortion, or the people of the Gulf Coast, who were accused of being the beneficiaries of extortion — no, the real aggreived party here are Mr. Barton’s fellow Republicans, who had the misfortune of being associated with an unpopular statement.
Midnight Marauder
@Nellcote:
Joe Barton: Texas vs. Obama’s over-reaching EPA
Roger Moore
@NonyNony:
Which creates a very obvious strategy for the Democrats: wait until the GOP talking point is especially stupid and then hammer them for it. You can either get them to back down, in which case they look weak to the crazy base, you get them to stand pat, in which case they look stupid or crazy to the non-base, or you get them to break message discipline, in which case they look disorganized. I find it amazing that the Democrats haven’t worked harder on this strategy. Maybe it’s because their message discipline isn’t good enough to make the hammering really effective.
Brachiator
@Josh:
Makes sense. Barton and the GOP can’t retreat, and for their core supporters, disdain for Obama and the Democrats trumps reality.
The GOP talking point has been pretty stupid from Day One, as when they waved around a blank piece of paper which supposedly was their response to Obama’s economic plans. Sadly, this keeps working for them with the GOP true believers.
Cols714
It’s not Democratic messaging, it’s the media. They are willing to run with whatever fake controversy of the day is being pushed by the crazies. But anything pushed by Democrats doesn’t really resonate.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Fixt.
We just have to accept that the true believers have faith, and nothing as shaky as objective facts are going to change that. The Democrats just have to concentrate on convincing as many of the remaining 72% of the population that the Republicans are too dangerous to be put anywhere near the reigns of power. It’s a workable strategy, especially since the Republicans really are too dangerous to be given the reigns of power.
NonyNony
@Roger Moore:
Eh. The problem is that because the Democrats are a coalition party there’s the opportunity for “friendly fire” to hit one of your own. And because the most conservative Dems seem to have the most friends in Congress, that means they have to wait until the talking point is exceptionally stupid before exploiting it.
Take health care – the GOP was going nuts on health care and you’d really think that the Dems could have taken some of their more outrageous statements and hammered them with it over and over and over again and made them look like chumps. Except that the GOP was careful enough not to step too far over the line that Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and some of the other conservative Dems were holding as far as health care went. Hitting the GOP too hard would have hit their own, so they couldn’t get enough mileage out of it.
In fact the only reason that the Dems have been able to get so much mileage out of this Barton comment is because the image of a member of Congress literally grovelling before a corporate executive – from a multinational company whose rig is spewing oil and killing the environment and the economy in multiple sates – was just too far over the line. Had Barton restricted himself to saying something like “he thought Obama went too far” the Dems wouldn’t have had much of an opportunity here. It was the very public act of fellatio that gave the Dems an opening – and historically the GOPers have been very good at keeping their corporate cocksucking like that either in private or buried in legislation.
bobbo
We give the Democrats crap for having no party discipline, but this is the flip side. Look how party discipline makes the whole Republican party walk off a cliff together.
dmsilev
Speaking of closed issues and people losing their jobs, various news outlets are reporting that Obama has relieved McChrystal of command.
A note to the New York Times: If your article headline says “Gen. McChrystal Is Relieved of Command”, you probably should change the title of the webpage to something other than “McChrystal’s Fate Unclear After Brief Meeting with Obama”.
dms
fucen tarmal
@Violet:
my sense of attack ads, when you actually have a point to make with them, they inexplicably become less effective.
like when they raise an issue people are actually pissed of about, v.s. say, looking for an excuse, not only are they aware of the difference, but they resent the style of attack. as if somehow you are trivializing a real issue, by attacking the other candidate or party, in that manner….
thus the attack has to come from the candidate itself….
licensed to kill time
Well, the Republicans closed their eyes and said “the issue is closed” three times while tapping their heels together so that does it! There’s no place like the Wishful Thinking Zone.
Also, I initially read that last sentence as Boehner caning Barton, which I’d be willing to watch on Pay per View.
Mike Toreno
You know who else doesn’t think Joe Barton should have apologized to BP?
Hitler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT5_RJVcoAk
Patriot3
@Mike Toreno: As Tommy Sowell might say, “When Adolph Hitler validates Agent Orange’s refusal to pull Joe Joe’s ranking member status, it just goes to show that Agent Orange always makes the right call even though it appears recently that he has just lost interest in everything except applying tanning lotion with none of the predicted Waterloos coming about.”
Phoenix Woman
Of course, Boehner himself not too long ago was publicly calling for a BP bailout, so he’s not exactly inclined to punish Barton for saying what all the GOPers believe (but which most of them are smart enough not to say in public).
Boehner, Bachmann, Barton — and of course Haley Barbour.
When so many Republicans, at least three of whom are Big Wheels in the party, are saying this, you know they really want it despite their later CYA backtracking.
jimBOB
@JGabriel:
If you hadn’t noticed, both 2006 and 2008 were utter debacles for them. Still, they like being in opposition, as then they can say whatever they want and blame the party in power for Republican-created messes.
CalD
__
…then again…