>Republican Congressman Joe Barton personally apologized to BP in a congressional hearing this week.

Apologized. Told the huge international company, the one responsible for eleven deaths and an unprecedented environmental disaster, that he was sorry. He called the $20 billion victims’ relief fund a “shakedown.”

What the #%$%!^&*#!?!?

President Obama and many members of Congress are working hard to ensure that BP provides relief to the victims in the Gulf region — and that the oil giant is held accountable for the damage it’s done. This is not a shakedown. This is accountability. This is responsibility. This is Taking care of the world in which they do business.

On that note, here’s my apology.

Dear Representative Barton and colleagues:

I’m sorry that you’ve been misled by your Grand Old Party. Successful business is good, and oil is important. But the cost in human lives, animal lives, and massive environmental damage, is not something to be taken lightly.

I’m sorry you think it’s wrong to expect accountability. Paying for damages is not a shakedown; it’s restitution. Putting up an escrow account for the future to rebuild and restore the beaches and marshes and fragile ecosystems; that’s not a shakedown, either. It’s called responsibility. Average citizens, the “small people” so condescendingly mentioned by BP executives, call it insurance. We pay premiums in case of disasters that we hope will never happen.

Most of all, Representative Barton and associates, I’m sorry that you have the power to make policy and write laws. If taking responsibility for our world, accepting accountability for mistakes that cost lives, and planning for the future are alien concepts, I don’t want you in office. You certainly don’t represent me.

Sincerely,

Daisy