In the midst of a crisis such as the oil spill, it is hard to get Republicans, Democrats, and the others to all decide and band together on any facet of the problem (although this is common theme all of the time!). One thing a Republican senator from Texas managed to do was unite both parties. Joe Barton apologized to British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward for what he perceived as a „government shake down“ in order to recieve the most amount of money from BP. Although the statement was later retracted, it still will have far reaching consequences and raise some interesting questions. One of the consequences involves the entire politics of the United States, as the Democrats were supposed to lose ground in the Senate and House of Representatives. Although, Barton tried to distance himself from the Republican party when making the statements, his affiliation with the party is enough of a problem that many pundits are predicting that the supposed congressional losses might be offset. In addition to raising questions of the long term affects on the Republican party because of the disrespectful comments, questions also arrose over the advisability of having the system of compaign funds being made avaliable through private funds, as Barton is a major benefactor of compaign funds from the gas and oil industries. This factor probably had much to do with his „apology“ towards the person in charge of the large oil company. Although the apology was swiftly retracted, damage was already done to the Republicans running in the November congresional election. It also brought up questions about the validity of using private campaign funds, something which does not occur in Germany.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65G42D20100617
photo:http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dL5FkkHm9uI/0.jpg
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