'Shakedown' comment angers colleagues but delights Dems. GOP rushes to clean up Barton mess

In the blink of an eye, Texas Rep. Joe Barton handed Democrats just what they wanted: a Republican villain in the oil spill crisis.

“I apologize,” he told BP CEO Tony Hayward — coloring himself “ashamed” that the White House would engage in a “shakedown” to get BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund to pay damage claims for Gulf Coast businesses and residents.


It would have been bad enough for the GOP if a backbencher had accidentally strayed wildly off message, but Barton, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is the face of the party on energy policy — and his comments were intentional. So rather than talking about BP’s culpability and the Obama administration’s response, Washington was fixated on a Texas Republican’s seemingly tone-deaf comments.

The damage control was swift and the pushback severe — leaders in Barton’s own party threatened to yank his ranking-member status on the committee. Gulf-state Republicans seethed, and the top three GOP House leaders were compelled to put out a joint statement saying, “Congressman Barton’s statements this morning were wrong.”

The Democratic National Committee sent out at least a dozen e-mails blasting Barton, and the White House put out a statement calling his comments “shameful.”

GOP leaders hauled Barton into a Capitol office shortly after midday and gave him an ultimatum, according to aides: Apologize for the apology to BP or face ouster from the Energy and Commerce post. Barton chose the former.

“I apologize for using the term ‘shakedown’ with regard to yesterday’s actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP,” Barton said.

It’s not often that a lawmaker apologizes for pre-written remarks.

But Barton’s still deep in the muck — and no one’s anxious to pull him out, least of all Republican leaders.

“Now that he has apologized, we’ll see what happens going forward,” said a Republican leadership aide, leaving open the possibility that the Republican Steering Committee could still move to oust Barton.

Republican leaders sensed the danger to their party — and the opportunity to rid it of Barton’s leadership — immediately.

Shortly after Barton was told to apologize by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in Boehner’s office, House Republicans’ BlackBerrys began to buzz with an e-mail from Boehner containing a transcript of his response to Barton’s comments.

His staff filled rank-and-file inboxes with their leader’s remarks to reporters on the matter, a unique way of illustrating that he did not agree with — and would not stand with — Barton.

“People are calling for his head,” one GOP member of the Energy and Commerce Committee told POLITICO at midday.

Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, whose Florida Panhandle district borders the Gulf, made that call public shortly thereafter.

“I condemn Mr. Barton’s statement,” Miller said. “Mr. Barton’s remarks are out of touch with this tragedy, and I feel his comments call into question his judgment and ability to serve in ... leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee. He should step down as ranking member of the committee.”

But Barton remained stolid — if not defiant — as he failed to immediately grasp the gravity of the situation.

He said calls for his ouster were “news to me” as he went to meet with Boehner and Cantor. Asked whether he planned to stay in his job, he replied, “Damn straight.”

It shouldn’t surprise Barton that Boehner failed to break his fall: The two have a long-developed distaste for each other that peaked when Barton ran against Boehner for the post of minority leader in late 2006. And Barton’s hopes of reversing a Boehner-supported GOP term-limit rule that would force him out the post at the end of this Congress appear more remote than ever now.

Democrats seemed almost to revel in Barton’s remarks.

“Who would the GOP put in charge of overseeing the energy industry & Big Oil if they won control of Congress? Yup, u guessed it — JOE BARTON,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted to his 66,066 followers Thursday afternoon.

That’s after Gibbs released an official White House statement saying it is “shameful ... that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small-business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction” and calling on members of both parties to “repudiate his comments.”

Vice President Joe Biden called Barton’s comments “outrageous.”

Democratic candidates tried to pin the remarks on their opponents.

“We deserve to know if [Rep.] Charlie Dent [R-Pa.] agrees with Congressman Barton’s apology to BP,” said John Callahan, Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania’s Allentown- and Bethlehem-area 15th District. “I think BP should be apologizing to American taxpayers instead of having Republican congressmen apologize to them.”

The worst part for Republicans: Barton knew he was going off-message.

A copy of Barton’s now-infamous opening statement showed that he had every intention to say what he said.

“I’m only speaking for myself — I’m not speaking for anybody else — but I apologize,” Barton said in prepared remarks. “I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or corporation that does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

That’s two apologies.

And then, amid the firestorm, there was a third apology, retracting the other apology.

But that may not be enough for his GOP colleagues.

“Whether Mr. Barton realizes it or not, he certainly did no favors to every member of our conference, his Republican colleagues in the Senate, candidates out running and a lot of our vulnerables,” a Republican aide said. “What he did certainly did not help anybody.”