GOP DEFENDING BP: Cutting Off Their Heads To Spite Their Necks

By William K. Wolfrum, via Liberaland:

"A couple months ago, it was a political certainty that Republicans would make strong gains in both the House and Senate in the November elections. Today, however, the GOP and entire conservative movement is working on perhaps the most incredible bit of mass political suicide this side of Gary Hart.


"Since the British Petroleum Deep Horizon oil well exploded – taking the lives of 11 BP workers and leveling mass destruction on the Gulf of Mexico – Republicans have been unable to contain themselves. Even as oil destroys wildlife, jobs, lives and the Gulf, Republicans have been doing back flips to come up with anything to pin the blame on President Barack Obama. Facts, logic, or even thought of any kind has flown from the minds of those making attacks.


The end result? The GOP has now become BP’s champion. Simply put, Republicans would rather defend BP and its interests than the interests of the American people. Their efforts to destroy Obama have put them solidly on the wrong side of the argument. Basically, the Republican Party has gone far beyond noses – they are now cutting off their heads to spite their necks.

"It has been one of the most ridiculous, anti-American displays one could imagine. And it keeps getting crazier. Today, as Congress drilled BP CEO Tony Hayward, Rep. Joe Barton took his turn and used it to apologize to Hayward, stating, 'It is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown.'

"Add this to Rep. Michele Bachmann stating that the $20-billion escrow account secured by Obama is “redistribution of wealth,” and Sarah Palin falsely claiming that Obama has avoided getting the help of the dike-fixing Dutch. One day a Republican calls Obama a weakling for his handling of the spill. The next day he’s a bully for making BP face it’s financial obligations to the U.S. And every day, Republicans have defended BP’s right to destroy the Gulf of Mexico and ruin the lives of Americans.

"To make matters even worse for Republicans, the Tea Party movement has been completely shut down because of the spill. Shouting slogans at the gulf of Mexico and screaming about how the free market will fix the problem has no place in such a monumental catastrophe. And the Tea Party has nothing more than slogans and copies of “Atlas Shrugged” to handle oil spills or any other issue. The movement – such that it is – has been muted.

"It’s easy enough to say that Republicans are only protecting their corporate sponsors. But that can’t explain their reactions fully. After all, the entirety of the American political system, on both sides of the aisle, is literally awash in oil company money. No, it’s more than that. It is Obama Derangement Syndrome to the nth degree.

"In desperately trying to paint Obama as incompetent in the face of the oil disaster, Republicans have made one thing very clear, whether they intended to or not – they are on the side of British Petroleum. They are more interested in the profit margin and stock price of a foreign corporation than they are in American citizens. And come November, it will be Republican necks on the line, as Democrats around the nation will make sure every last registered voter and “small person” knows that when all hell broke loose in the Gulf of Mexico, Republicans were too busy playing politics and holding BP’s hand to give a whit about the American public."