Adam already identified the problems with Reihan Salam's Joe Barton-style assessment of the White House's dealings with BP. But Salam's similarly Barton-esque apology for his apology reveals an interesting sort of bias. On Twitter, Salam writes:
My argument re: BP is clearly completely wrong if the WH had nothing to do with BP's decision to establish the fund. I assumed that the WH really did exercise its leverage. But I now get the sense that the WH was trying to take credit for a decision BP reached on its own, to arrest its freefall. And the WH decided to capitalize politically, which is entirely natural.
So, to square the circle, the BP escrow fund represents the shakedown of another "victim of government bullying" if it was the White House's idea, but if BP came up with the concept, then the company is just trying to "arrest its freefall," and the White House isn't guilty of bullying, just political opportunism.
Surely, though, Salam can attempt to evaluate whether the escrow fund is a good idea on its merits. Regardless of the idea's origin, if an escrow fund helps both BP's public-relations crisis and ensures that injured parties will get their claims resolved sooner, then it's hardly a shakedown if the White House proposes it and uses its limited authority to convince the company to adopt it. If it's a bad idea because BP has "no assurances on future legal liability and it remains, quite appropriately, on the hook for environmental damages," then it should be bad even if the oil conglomerate did it entirely of its own volition.
Salam seems to be approaching the position that a plan that comes from the government is bad, but if it came from a corporation, it's good -- and the government will try to take credit for the brilliant idea. It's the sort of doctrinaire ideology that Salam made his name defying.
-- Tim Fernholz
