Rep. Joe Barton's in trouble. But what about all the others that agree with him?

Rep. Joe Barton committed a cardinal sin for politicians yesterday; he said what he really thought.  Barton, during opening statements before BP's Tony Hayward testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, apologized to BP for the Obama Administration's audacity at demanding BP put into escrow $20B to take care of all the anticipated claims sure to come from the oil company's negligence in the Gulf. 

Most folks, and certainly most career politicians have enough sense to self-censor.  Those that can't usually realize when they've said something really, really stupid and clumsily try to recover - "I didn't mean that", "I misspoke" or, more commonly, "You misinterpreted what I said".

Barton apparently falls into the even smaller group that's so out of touch with the mainstream they have no idea when they say something stupid, offensive and grossly tone deaf.  He may end up paying for it.  

Two House Republicans, Reps. Jo Bonner and Jeff Miller, have called for Barton to step down as ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. From Bonner's statement:

I believe the damage of his comments are beyond repair and, as such, I am today calling on Joe to do the right thing for our conference and immediately step aside as Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee," 

Barton may well wind up the GOP's sacrificial lamb here.  But as he gets slaughtered, the question remains as to how many more Republican politicians think exactly as Barton does - that BP's fortunes are way more important than Gulf coast residents - but have the good sense not to say it out loud on national television.

Andrew Sullivan posted a compilation video of conservative pundits defending Barton's position. 

Granted, these guys get paid to say provocative things.  But it's a reasonable bet that, if these influential conservative pundits all think providing for Americans whose lives are now fucked as a result of BP's negligence amounts to a "shakedown" (classic use of a word to label the president as some kind of inner city  gangster), there are a big bunch of Republican representatives and senators that think exactly the same.