Sen. Tom Coburn offers us this Moment of Irony: He frets that negotiations between BP and the White House may not have been fair because, well, BP was in a weaker PR position.

KING: Rush right or is the Republican leadership in the House right?

COBURN: Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s the cynicism of our politics today. Nobody in either party wants to be vulnerable on any issue and where’s the real leadership? You know what we lack is where is the clarity of purpose. Nobody disagrees that BP is going to be held accountable. The question is how and when and that’s a small matter right now in terms of the problem that we have.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Do you have any problem with the White House negotiating this deal?

COBURN: Well I’m not sure it’s fair negotiations because you’re dealing with one very strong party and one very weak party in terms of public relations. But you know basically holding them accountable is where we want to be and this is one way of doing it.

See? This isn't about fairness, not really. It's about the appearance of fairness from a public relations standpoint. The whole "shakedown" meme begun by Joe Barton last week and continued through the weekend is nothing more than an effort to turn the victimizer into the victimized. Since there's absolutely no foundation for such a flip, there's only how things look.

(h/t Talking Points Memo)