Barton has now issued the following apology for the apology. Boehner must have reamed him a new asshole for stepping all over the Republican message and diverting the attention instead toward himself.

While questioning Hayward in the afternoon, Barton offered an apology if his earlier comments were "misconstrued."

"If I might take a small point of personal privilege I want to be absolutely clear that I think BP is responsible for this accident, should be held responsible and should in every way do everything possible to make good on the consequences that have resulted from this accident," he said. "And if anything I said this morning has been misconstrued to the opposite effect I want to apologize for that misconstrued misconstruction."

In a statement he made his apology more explicit.

"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," he said. "...I regret the impact that my statement this morning implied that BP should not pay for the consequences of their decisions and actions in this incident."

I have read that a coordinated decision had been made for Republicans to criticize the President for the fund as a shakedown/govt takeover Chavez style move as there was a good opening to further advance that narrative in relation to other events in his presidency, but this episode today has apparently gotten Boehner and them to call off the dogs because the fund actually is polling really high approval right now, and then retards like Barton put their foot in their mouth and give the impression the GOP is siding with BP instead of the people of the Gulf. Boehner is supposedly pissed right now about how the day unfolded compared to how it was supposed to go as far as the media narrative.

BHO is looking like a hero fighting for the Gulf people instead of a wealth seizing thug using heavy handed government tactics to provide itself a huge government slush fund, and its all Barton's fault.