How dare you apologize to BP!

As a politician of this country, you represent the people, not corporate interests. And guess what? The people are pissed. This is the worst environmental disaster in history to fall upon our country, and it is a direct result of the corporation that you got down on your knees and apologized for.

You might as well have flipped the rest of America the bird.

And now Republicans want YOU to head the whole Energy and Commerce Committee? I don’t think so!

How dare you, Joe Barton. How dare you tell BP that their payments made to the people of the Gulf Coast—payments for complete devastation and destruction left in their own irresponsible wake—are a “tragedy” and a “shakedown”! Do you honestly not realize that the real tragedy here is what’s happening to our Gulf Coast, its people, its land, its animals?

Do you honestly put corporations like BP ahead of your own country? That you would honor a profit machine that completely disregards the health and safety of the American people before the people themselves? Because that’s exactly what you just said. You just slapped the entire Gulf Coast in the face.

And Mr. Barton, we the people will NOT stand for this. In fact, you can expect letters to your office to start coming in droves from Americans who actually give a damn about their country and their fellow citizens. I hear you've been in office since 1985; I think it's high time for some new blood in your district.

I hope you don’t expect to run another term. Because, even as a constituent in another state, I will gladly donate and phone bank and campaign for any candidate who runs against you—and I really believe that hundreds of other people, if not thousands, across America will be willing to do so as well. Only mere minutes after you stated your appalling comments, I received a handful of emails from both organizations as well as private citizens—and that is just the beginning.

I suggest you apologize to the American people for being so flippant about their health and safety and country itself, Mr. Barton. That would be the decent, American thing to do. Of course, I don’t expect you to do it, as you've so aptly demonstrated your complete disregard for the American people as well as our country's wetlands.

We are very ashamed of you. You do not speak for us. And that will be in the mind of your district during election season, sir.