Drilling Through Obama's Rhetoric

Obama looks at oil as foreign policy:

"Oil money pays for the bombs going off from Baghdad to Beirut, and the bombast of dictators from Caracas to Tehran." (WaPo)

What a bizarre ... no, what a leftist ... view. Commerce is evil. Big commerce is big evil.

The Dem presumptive also refers to oil drilling as "a failed policy." Failed? Look at what oil drilling has accomplished for our world. It changed us from a globe of far-flung, isolated peoples to a global community. It gave us new medicines and materials that have improved our lives. It made it possible to get to the hospital by ambulance or helicopter instead of horse and carriage. It fuels our economy, creating jobs and wealth.

One drawback: It makes it possible for one Barack Obama to campaign relentlessly across our very large nation.

But to him, oil and drilling for oil are nothing more than a failed policy -- even though all the alternative energy forms, that have been spouted relentlessly since the 1970s, have failed to deliver even five percent of our national energy needs.

Not only does Obama support failed energy sources, he supports failed methods for making alternative energy just energy. His plan is to use money raised through an auction of greenhouse-gas emissions credits (i.e., an energy tax) to bolster research and development projects, which have been bolstered for three decades now with little to show for it.

Meanwhile, he wants to force alternative energy into the economy by imposing requirements on how much renewable energy public utilities would have to buy. Ve have ways ov making you buy! Never mind whether its available, never mind whether its cost effective. What people have to pay for energy is of no concern to Mr. Elite, because it's a hidden tax.

Meanwhile, McCain's laying out an energy policy with some positive energy behind it: Drill now in America. Go nuclear. Conserve. Use alternate fuels. This is a sound and diverse plan that actually would cause America to be less dependent on foreign oil

Drill now? Obama actually said that there's no point in drilling now because it'll be ten years until offshore oil wells deliver. Clinton said the same thing about drilling for ANWR oil -- ten years ago. If he had been a visionary instead of reflexively pushing alternative fuels, ANWR oil would be moderating prices today. Alternative fuels certainly aren't.

Of course, Obama's not alone in calling oil drilling "failed policy." Here's the DNC:

The Democratic National Committee responded that Mr. McCain’s speech “will cave in to his friends in the oil and gas industry’’ and that he would be offering “more of the same failed Bush policies that have driven energy prices through the roof.’’ (NYT)

Note to Dems: Fuel prices under Bush in 2001 were the same as they were in 1995. After Sept. 11, they started a slow climb -- but they didn't start soaring until the Dems took over Congress in 2006.