Joe Barton would like to apologize to...

... BP, for soaking up all your valuable oil with our worthless pelicans.

Oh, Internet, you're such a kidder! Who comes up with these things? It's great, anyway.

Joe Barton, of course, is the Texas Republican - the ranking Republican on the House Energy Committee, in fact - who thinks that the "tragedy of the first proportion" isn't the current oil spill in the gulf, but rather that President Obama has persuaded BP to pledge $20 billion to clean it up.

Keep in mind that the President didn't - couldn't - order BP to do this. So how was this a "shakedown"? Furthermore, how could Barton think that asking BP to clean up their own mess was somehow wrong? Well, maybe the fact that he's taken more campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry than anyone else in the House of Representatives? Maybe because his biggest single contributor owns 25% of the Macondo Project, the site of this Deepwater Horizon explosion?

And yes, this is the lunatic who'll be chairman of the Energy Committee if the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives this November. In fact, we've seen him in action before. He's the guy who thought he'd "baffled" Energy Secretary - and Nobel Prize-winner - Steven Chu by asking where the oil in Alaska came from. (I think Stu was stunned by this level of ignorance in a member of Congress.) And Barton's "natural response" to global warming is to sit in the shade. Great, huh?

But whenever you're depressed, the Internet inevitably rides to the rescue, this time with a Joe Barton would like to apologize website. Click on the random apology to get a new one.

Among others, Joe Barton would like to apologize to...

Al Capone, for our totally unfair income tax system.

The Confederacy for taking all your slaves away. Totally a shakedown move on our part. Sorry.

Germany, for D-Day. Seems like you guys would have really liked to keep all of Europe. How about if we just give you Texas for your troubles. Fair trade?