A New Inductee into the Texas Hall of A**holes

There's something particularly repulsive and counter to the human good about Texas pols. It's not like yer average Texans are bad people. But for some reason, we have a strict policy of only electing insane a**holes to public office. Exhibit A: Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX).

After Obama's luke-warm 'war speech' about the BP spill the other night, Joe Barton took exception to BP being forced to pay for the clean-up. "I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown," Barton said.

As I said, you have to be an a**hole to get elected in Texas. But Barton??? F*ck. I'm sure even John Cornyn would think this guy's a couple of twinkies short of a 7-11.