Rep. Scalise Sweats BS on Hardball, Does not know details about $20 billion fund

Just about anyone paying attention knows how the BP $20 billion fund is going to be administered. Anyone that is, except Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise. It's very simple:

According to BP: Payments from the fund will be made as they are adjudicated, whether by the Independent Claims Facility (ICF) referred to below, or by a court, or as agreed by BP. The ICF will be administered by Ken Feinberg, who oversaw the 9/11 victims compensation fund.

The ICF will adjudicate on all Oil Pollution Act and tort claims excluding all federal and state claims. Any money left in the fund once all legitimate claims have been resolved and paid will revert to BP.

But on Hardball, Scalise unleashed the great GOBP straw man ploy, where the most improbable "what ifs" are offered up as if they were sane possibilities. Scalise is not embarrassed by appearing completely removed from the available information out there when he asked, "Where's that money going to go, how is it going to be spent." Scalise wildly imagines this: "I don't think people want to see it wasted on government bureaucracy here in Washington." Chris Matthews calls this one right when he accuses Scalise of "pure partisan politics."

Vilifying the fund by attaching to it fantastical evil intentions, on the backs of the victims of the Gulf oil spill, is standard operating procedure for these bottom feeders. This is red meat for the base, which says a lot about the low information fire breathers worried about the end of our constitutional democracy.

Scalise too is afraid of ruffling Rush Limbaugh's feathers, siding with him, and not his party leadership.