It’s distressing to see all the hand wringing conservatives are doing over government mistreatment of BP. BP has teams of lawyers and politicians in their pockets so I’m sure they’ll be just fine. FYI BP gives millions to leftist groups working night and day to destroy Republicans so let them cry over BP.

Good grief @Brian, watch the CSPAN video clip of Barton and get some context of the situation. It’s not customary, acceptable, constitutional, or within the powers of the executive branch to make demands of private companies. The correct and lawful method of holding BP responsible financially up front would be for the executive branch to make recommendations to Congress for legislation, which would have passed swiftly. For the POTUS to ‘arrange’ this on his own is more like a Hugo Chavez move. The hand wringing, as you call it, is the precedent and ease of such actions without question that Obama gets away with, hacking away again at our core constitutional values and principles. Whenever this administration can’t get their way in congress, they look to accomplish their agenda through expanding an existing agency or redefining its role.

AMEN commonsense247.
I must disagree with The Economist’s contention that O is our Putin.
Putin has a resume, he really does know how the world works, he is an accomplished KGB operative with decades of experience, has a 4th degree or better black belt in jiu jitsu, and if needed really CAN kick some ass rather than merely chatter about doing it.
BHO on the other hand is a boastful, naive Harvard intellectualoid whose main strength is the wits of the guy who runs his cell, yet another famous George.
One way they’re alike is they are devious, and you can trust that what they say is based on the need for impression, not integrity.

Obama did nothing “unconstitutional”. At the current rate the well is leaking the fine (@$3500 per barrel) will well exceed the $20 billion BP was asked to put in escrow. So Obama had 2 choices to get help fast to the ppl whose lives have been uprooted. One was borrow the money from China to bail out BP (which the repubs wanted so they could score political points) or two ask BP for an advance payment towards paying off their fine. Obama did the right thing.

Amazing. Brian gives new depth and meaning to the term “koolaid drinker”. “…the 20 billion BP WAS ASKED to put in escrow”. Yeah. Right. BP was asked like a victim was asked by a mugger to hand over his wallet.

Considering B. Hussein’s demonstrated foul-ups in dealing wth the clean-up, he and his administration are either totally incompetent to deal with real-world problems, or they are intentionally interfering with legitimate clean-up efforts in order to suck up to the Far Left.