Friday, June 18, 2010

Misconstrued, my black ass…

Misconstrue - To interpret erroneously, to understand incorrectly; to misunderstand.

Shall we?

Yesterday, Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas apologized to BP chief executive Tony Hayward.  Hayward was called to the Hill to testify before the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In his opening statement Barton said…

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday.” … “I think 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.”


He went on…and on…and on.

As the web exploded, the Republican Congressman issued a non-apology clarification - saying that his remarks had been "misconstrued”, Barton offered up…"I want to apologize for that misconstruction."

That was bullshit and the outraged masses swiftly declared it so.

Aint nothing to misconstrue…Barton is one Republican politician who knows how to speak plainly when he wants to.

And he clearly wanted to…big time!

By the end of the day, Barton had transitioned to a full apology minus the misconstruction bullshit.

The conspiracy theory lover in me suspects that Barton did exactly what he was sent forth to do…distract from the specifics of the hearing and the lack of buck-stops-here from Hayward.

If so, Congressman Barton deserves a bump in his next campaign donation from the oil industry ’cause everyone and their dawg has been talking about his public defense of BP in service to the Church of a Free Market Economy…

…and only a few folks are pointing out that BP’s Hayward fell flat as a motherfucker, failed to answer questions about how much time and money BP saved by skipping multiple safety measures and was even caught on screen checking his fucking watch.

Hayward speaks well and he’s even got the facial expressions of regret, sorrow and misery down…

…but odds are he regrets not having his life back, he’s sorrowful that this oil spill didn’t happen off the shore of Africa where he and his minions could take their damn time not cleaning it up and he feels strongly that having to listen to America politicians lash out at him while missing World Cup Soccer is the very definition of misery.

Pause…consider…continue.

I bet if we checked Tony Hayward’s iPhone we’d find a tweet from Rep. Joe Barton apologizing for the goal that got past England’s goalie in the USA v England match.

Lawd, have mercy.

6 comments:

Kit (Keep It Trill) said...

Yes. It's insanity. All of it.

No Frills No Fluff said...

I found you via Tara Clark. Amazing blog and I will now become a follower.

No Frills No Fluff said...

Ok, can't follow you, but I'll bookmark your site. :-)

Christopher said...

Barton's not nearly the only one sucking up the crude BP pukes out...the US department of defense runs on BP fuel almost exclusively. interesting to ponder considering how the us military can't seem to plug up its own invasive maneuvers to find oil...

Anonymous said...

Thank god someone is looking out for these poor defenseless private corporations...

Knowledge said...

I find it fascinating that this idiot Representative truly believes that asking the head guy in charge to testify about the oil catastrophe brought on by this same head guy's comapany is a tragedy compared to, you know, the actual tragedy that's occurred in the Gulf Region.

Unfortuantely, it's also unsurprising, as politics go.

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