Oily Situation

Democrats are still expected to lose seats in Congress and possibly their majority in the House - so the corporate media keep telling us - but Representative Joseph Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, may have helped the Democrats in their efforts to cut their losses in the November midterm elections. Heck, he may have helped Charlie Melancon in his bid to unseat Louisiana Republican senator David Vitter. Barton's apology to BP for President Obama's demands on the company to pay compensation to people adversely affected by the Gulf oil leak may have revitalized the Democratic party's energy for the fall campaigns. His comments put the Republicans philosophically on the side of Big Oil, a point White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) have made. Emanuel added that even if Barton were to step down from his House committee post to save face for his party, his replacement would be no less a stooge for the petroleum industry, and that it's important that voters understand that.

Meanwhile, BP chief Tony Hayward got his life back. The BP chief still has his job but no longer directly oversees cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, he's taken part in another maritime situation - namely, a yachting race off the Isle of Wight. For those people who only know of this place as the source of a Beatles lyric and the site of an annual rock festival, the Isle of Wight is a picturesque island in the English Channel about four miles of the coast of England and a popular tourist destination for the leisure classes - think of it as a British Nantucket. Pictures of Hayward racing his yacht leaked to the press faster than the oil coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, displaying his utter insensitivity to struggling fishermen in Louisiana and hoteliers in Florida, among others. As ordinary people are trying to save the shoreline of the U.S.'s southern coast, Hayward is enjoying the lap of luxury on England's southern coast.

Meanwhile, BP is beginning to collect oil directly from the leak. How much do you want to bet that they still try to refine that oil into gasoline? There's another reason to boycott BP service stations. Who wants seawater in their gas tanks?

Yes, I'm being facetious.