Hoosier Congressman Mike Pence took to the floor of the House of Representatives to demand an investigation into what happened on April 20, 2010. But he’s not interested in what caused the Deep Horizon oil rig to explode – he wants to know how he can blame the Obama administration:

“The American people deserve to know why the administration was slow to respond, why necessary equipment was not immediately on hand in the area and why the president did not fully deploy cabinet-level federal officials until he spoke at the White House on April 28th.”

I want to make one thing clear: Pence isn’t one of the handful of conservatives pushing the line that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is “Obama’s Katrina.” That would be too moderate for the former talk radio host. Instead, ”Pence asserted that Obama’s response time was slow compared to Bush’s response [to Hurricane Katrina] in 2005.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and other Democrats have condemned these kind of remarks – and Pence’s remarks specifically. But it turns out that Mike Pence’s wild allegations are too much for his fellow Republicans.

The most thorough response came from Fox News host Jane Skinner, who was armed with the facts and refused to let Karl Rove get away with baseless allegations about a delayed response from the Obama administration. She told Rove that “the national response team was activated and later that day the President convened a meeting in the Oval Office with all those involved.” (Watch the video of their exchange here.)

Minnesota’s Republican Governor (and 2012 Presidential hopeful) Tim Pawlenty told ABC News that the government “is responding to the best of their abilities.”

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called the politicization of the spill “insane”, and asked, “What could they have done? Are you gonna put Obama in a dive suit and send him down there with a little rake?”

My favorite, though, was Pence’s former colleague in the House, Joe Scarborough, who called the oil spill-Katrina analogy “completely obscene”, and went on to say, “Anybody that draws that analogy is an idiot.”

I can’t find anything to argue with there.

(Video & text of Pence’s remarks below the cut.)

“The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an ongoing tragedy, and the American people deserve action to protect our Gulf and they deserve answers.

“The American people deserve to know what happened on April 20th, and Congress should investigate it thoroughly.

“The American people deserve to know why the administration was slow to respond, why necessary equipment was not immediately on hand in the area and why the president did not fully deploy cabinet-level federal officials until he spoke at the White House on April 28th.

“Lastly, the American people deserve answers for a pathway toward energy independence. There would be those in this country who would exploit this ongoing disaster to deny the American people more access to American oil that but the American people know better.

“The pathway toward energy independence is environmentally responsible expansion of domestic drilling for oil and natural gas. It’s more wind and solar and nuclear and more conservation.

“Republicans are determined to get the American people the answers about what happened on April 20th, about the slow federal response and to give the American people answers and a pathway toward energy independence that uses ‘all of the above.’”

Transcript via GOP.gov

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory interrupted Rep. Mike Pence’s rant about immigration to point out that it was Republicans who killed immigration reform in 2007. Seriously, how inane do your talking points have to be for Dancing Dave to knock you down?

Watch – the video gets good at about 1:40 (partial transcript below the cut):

(Unfortunately, this video cuts off Pence’s response. For a differently-edited clip, see the Crooks & Liars piece, “David Gregory Points Out Mike Pence’s Hypocrisy on Border Security”)

I’ve been very critical of Gregory since he took over Meet the Press – for example, I’ve knocked his refusal to fact-check guests, his obsession with polls and ignorance of policy, and his lack of any accountability for the flaws of his show – but this was decent journalism. Gregory was armed with the facts, and Pence had only his talking points.

Senate Republicans killed this bill. And they weren’t alone – a certain Hoosier Congressman named Mike Pence wrote a special comment for the Washington Times about why he opposed the “amnesty bill”:

I opposed the Senate immigration bill because of its core fallacy that millions of illegal immigrants could get right with the law without having to leave the country. For most Americans, and me, that is amnesty and I cannot support it. (Washington Times, June 10, 2007, page B3 – via Lexis search)

And even if the bill had gone through the Senate, Hoosier Republican Mark Souder was there to stop it in the House:

Mark Souder, the top Republican on the House sub-committee on border security, yesterday warned that the legislation would be "dead on arrival" in the House. (Financial Times, June 27, 2007, page 12 – via Lexis search)

But Gregory didn’t go far enough in debunking Pence’s tired talking points.

In both clips, Pence throws out a lot of numbers about “enforcement budgets”. But those numbers aren’t about enforcement or fences, they’re about the failed “virtual fence”. Media Matters debunked this a few days back, citing tons of statistics about the costs overruns and failed tests by this specific project.

Finally, Pence asserts that, “Phoenix, Arizona, is, is the kidnapping capital of the United State of America.” He neglects to point out, as Phoenix police do, that the victims of these kidnappings are almost always drug dealers or other crime figures. And, contrary to what Rep. Pence implies here, “ICE says the spike [in kidnappings] stems from tighter enforcement on the porous Arizona-Mexico border in recent years.”

Partial transcript, via Crooks and Liars:

GREGORY: But this is an interesting point because, Congressman Pence, the president came out and said, you know, there was some debate about whether immigration would be an agenda item that he would push before energy legislation. He said this week there simply aren’t the votes for it, particularly from Republicans.

PENCE: Well, well, let, let’s be clear for a second. This is no laughing matter for the people of Arizona who are–have been profoundly affected by the fact that there’s nearly a half a million illegal immigrants and, and a rampant drug trade and, and, and human trafficking trade that’s been besetting. Phoenix, Arizona, is, is the kidnapping capital of the United State of America. I don’t know if this law is perfect, but I knew–do know that it is wrong for officials in this government to throw stones at the people of Arizona as they’re trying to, to reassert the rule of law in the wake of the fact that this administration and this Congress have been systematically cutting funding to border security since the Democrats took control.

GREGORY: Of course, it was Republicans who blocked comprehensive immigration reform. Let’s be clear about that.

PENCE: Well, let–well, let, let’s focus on border security first, David.

GREGORY: Right.

PENCE: In, in fiscal…

GREGORY: The bill called for that. The Bush bill called for more border security, Republicans were with him…

PENCE: Right.

GREGORY: …until they were against him on that.