I might add to my post about Obama's crushing victory over BP that it has subsequently gotten attention in the blogosphere, because the GOP is complaining about it! Kleefeld exposes the critics:
Rush Limbaugh said that the escrow fund would be a "slush fund," and wondered where the money would end up going: "Who's gonna get this money? Union activists? ACORN people? Who's gonna get this money. Let's keep a sharp eye on who Feinberg gives this money to. Because I'm telling you, this is just another bailout fund, called something else, and we'll see who gets it."
Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) has also voiced criticism -- saying that forcing BP to pay the money now would cut into their profits, thus making it more difficult to pay more down the line. "If BP is the responsible party under the law, they're to pay for everything. I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they'll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income. ... But this escrow bothers me that it's going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us. And that concerns me."
This is amazing to me. If Obama did not get the money from BP, he'd be a useless Carter. Now that he has, he's a commie. And this is also part of his core political skill. He drives his opponents mad, and in the end, their total incoherence and malice will hurt them. In the end, because he won't take the Modo bait, the destruction of the populist ideological right will be more effective and profound because it will be self-destruction. Yes, this means that you have to endure these loonies posturing and making shit loads of money from it for the foreseeable future. But that merely requires steel and patience. Maybe some Democrats, liberal cable hosts and bloggers could do with a little more of both.
Meep, meep.