If you were watching last weeks' live blog of BP CEO Tony Hayward's testimony before Congress, you got to experience my shocked reaction to Joe Barton's shameless apology to BP for having to escrow $20 billion for victims' losses due to the oil spill.

Later in the same day he apologized for that apology after some Republicans called for his head (and ranking member status).

And then he decided the apology for the apology wasn't all that necessary after all. Are you following all this?

A staffer is now taking the hit for actually posting this tweet, but I have no doubt the cue was Barton's.

Bottom line: Joe Barton thinks BP has been unfairly treated for having to take responsibility for the devastation in the Gulf.

This is how shills are born. They come into the world as politicians "representing constituents." When the constituents they represent are the wealthy oil companies in their districts, they sell themselves to the highest bidder, BP, in this case.

Joe Barton, as you might recall, was one of the chief architects of the Cheney Oil Act that gave BP the necessary exemptions to drill that well without all of the required EIRs (Environmental Impact Reports). Joe Barton is Big Oil's handmaiden, and he is shameless about it.

Conservatives fuel Barton's walkback of the walk back, decrying Big Government and its heavy hand on the shoulder of corporate America. Yes, the Party of Personal Responsibility is certainly all for Personal Responsibility until, well...someone is responsible. Then it's not really all that necessary to believe in personal responsibility.

Or to believe in corporate "person"al responsibility. The smell of Barton's hypocrisy is as pungent as the stench of oil washing up on Louisiana shores.