It's not often that Republicans pounce on a Barack Obama idea to claim it as their own, but this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has a way of creating strange bed partners.
After reports surfaced Sunday that Barack Obama was preparing to demand that BP open an escrow account to pay for the damages caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum swooped in to take credit. He released this statement, saying he welcomed "the President's echoing of my call for an escrow account," which he made the previous week.
Not to be outdone, lame-duck Sen. George LeMieux told a national cable television audience that he'd been clamoring for an escrow account since at least May 11, as you can see in the video after the jump.
Sorry, LeMieux. Neither you nor McCollum had this idea first. As best we can tell, the first politician to the party was Greenacres Sen. David Aronberg, who suggested an escrow account in a letter to Crist dated May 5. A Democrat.
Of course, if the escrow account proves to be an unmitigated failure, these politicians will be just as eager to give blame for the idea to their colleagues.
