“America’s Putin” and The BP Oil Spill Escrow Fund

Michael Barone, who coined the term, “thugocracy”, has penned the must read of the day: Obama’s Thuggery Is Useless in Fighting Spill

Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP’s gulf oil spill.

Read the whole thing. It’s basically a recap of the bumbling thuggery that has characterized the Obama administration’s reaction to the Gulf oil spill from the beginning.  Barone is particularly concerned about the $20 billion escrow fund Obama forced on BP:

…there’s the $20 billion escrow fund that Obama pried out of the BP treasury at the White House when he talked for the first time, 57 days after the rig exploded, with BP Chairman Tony Hayward. It’s pleasing to think that those injured by BP will be paid off speedily, but House Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a “shakedown.”

For there already are laws in place that ensure that BP will be held responsible for damages, and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.

Even The left-leaning Economist, (which endorsed Obama in Oct. ’08), is getting nervous:

If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so. The collapse in BP’s share price suggests that he has convinced the markets that he is an American version of Vladimir Putin, willing to harry firms into doing his bidding.

Here are some reactions to this from the Right:

Christian Whiton, Fox News: The BP Victims Fund and Obama’s Lawless Ways

There is already a well-established legal process for remedying the economic cost of someone else’s negligence. Every day, thousands of Americans sue other individuals or companies, either by themselves or via class actions that combine their efforts. The design and rules of these legal processes are laid out in laws crafted by Congress and state legislatures.

BP’s $20 billion was extracted outside of this legal framework for reasons that have not been explained. There is a high risk that this fund will be doled out based on political, not legal criteria. Rather than judges and juries making decisions, an economic commissar will.

DRJ Patterico’s Pontifications: Using the $20B BP “Escrow” Funds

Rush: Organized Crime in White House: The Regime’s Shakedown of BP

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, I find myself apparently in a minority position, just as you do, too.  I checked the e-mail during the break, and I got a lot of e-mails.  “How dare you defend BP?  Are you nuts?  Do you want the Democrats to win the election?  You gotta jump on BP.  There’s no defending BP!” I’m not defending BP. I’m standing for the rule of law.  We have a legal system to ensure that corporations are held accountable.  We have free market aspects that ensure that in civil and criminal matters.  We have a legal system to deal with it.  Now the executive branch has just said the legislative branch, the judicial branch, neither matter.  We’re just going to come in and we are the law.  Take over a private industry, the auto industry. If they want to, they can do it.  I’m not defending BP here.

I’m trying to defend the US Constitution, the American way of life, American exceptionalism, what it was that made this country great.

And in the American Thinker, today: Is Obama’s BP Shakedown an Impeachable Offense?:

The president has no legal authority to create the escrow fund and no authority to compel BP to contribute to the fund. Forcing BP to agree to the terms of the escrow is ultra vires (i.e., illegal), beyond the powers of his office. Rep. Barton (R-TX) accurately described the slush fund as a “shakedown” (i.e., blackmail), a felony. If so, Pres. Obama has committed an impeachable offense. Congress itself does not have the authority to create the escrow fund retroactively. Congress will have no voice at all except to vilify any Republican who raises questions about it.

And there’s the rub. Will Republicans give Obama a pass on this because they know Americans are justifiably enraged with BP, and it’s bad politics to speak out against it? Rahm Emanuel calls Republican criticism of the fund, a political gift.”

“A political gift” was the free room and board, Emanuel got from that BP consultant, but never-mind that. Will the Republicans screw up their courage after they’re through raking Barton over the coals for apologizing to BP, and criticize this thing properly?