WaPo Editorial on Drilling

'Snake Oil'
Debunking three 'truths' about offshore drilling

Surprisingly centrist editorial that takes on some of the misleading, or outright false claims that the anti-drilling environmentalists often make. While I give the editors at the WaPo credit for doing that (although not too much, when you reach the point where even Obama and Nancy Pelosi are trying to achieve some "nuance" in their positions on drilling, I guess it's not too surprising to see the media following suit), in the course of "debunking three 'truths' about offshore drilling," the editors contribute a few of their own, namely:

Contrary to the baldly political suggestions regarding lower gasoline prices by President Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), drilling would make no impact on today's pain at the pump because it would be years before any oil flowed from the Outer Continental Shelf.

Seriously? Have these people been paying zero attention to oil prices recently, or do they simply have no understanding of how market speculation works? President Bush had but to casually mention that he was perhaps pondering the idea of rethinking the ban on drilling, and oil prices have been dropping ever since! And even if, for some strange reason, the greedy, evil oil speculators for some reason decide to go against every law of economics and continue buying oil in the face of the potential for a vastly increasing supply down the road, why is this an argument against drilling? This is the same argument that liberals and enviromentalists have been making for decades now, that drilling won't produce results for years. At what point is someone (besides Jay Leno) going to stand up and state the obvious, that if drilling truly won't produce results for years, maybe we should get started now!?

We agree that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with its varied and sensitive ecosystems, should be preserved. In the quest for new sources of energy, there
are trade-offs. That pristine area must remain off-limits.

This endlessly repeated meme needs to die, and quick. This is another case where the editors either have absolutely zero grasp of the facts involved, or else they simply don't care about the facts and are going to just continue parroting the party line entire the Post goes the way of so many other venerable newspapers. ANWR is not some pristine land of glistening lakes, surrounded by endless herds of caribou and other wildlife, bordered by snowcapped mountains and verdent forests. There are certainly some strikingly beautiful parts, but particularly in the relatively tiny percentage that would be drilled on, it's a veritable wasteland, indistinguishable from acres and acres of tundra elsewhere. To mortgage our countries future by allowing us to be held hostage by our enemies for the sake of a few acres of wilderness is asinine.

Keep the Pressure On - Part 2

White House says no to special session of Congress
via TheHill.com

Headline notwithstanding, more encouraging news from Capitol Hill, where Republican members of Congress continue to demonstrate (some may say "grandstand," but I'm not one of them) in order to draw attention to the Democrat's refusal to debate or vote on energy policy and domestic drilling.

If nothing else, I admire the verve and sense of humor that many of the members seem to be bringing to the proceedings. Too often, the GOP seems to be content to allow themselves to be painted as the party without the ability to laugh, unwilling to make fun of themselves, the group of old boring white men, too far removed from society and reality to bring about any sort of meaningful change, and impossible for young people to identify with.

Meanwhile, as any conservative who has tried to debate or talk to a liberal, it is far too often the liberals who are lacking any sort of a sense of humor, who take themselves way too seriously. This is a weakness that the GOP, already portrayed as underdogs, should be exploiting all the until November. No one is more deserving of this treatment than the man at the top of the ticket, and this ongoing effort in the House coincides nicely with the post below...

Keep the Pressure On

Bush rips Democrats for opposing offshore drilling
Via MyWay by way of Drudge

Relatively straightforward article about Bush calling on Democrats to debate and allow a vote on lifting the ban on drilling for domestic energy, good to see him working in conjunction with the various GOP members of Congress who stuck around at the end of last week, neither party should let up on this.

The issue is an easy winner for the Republicans, and continuing the call reduces the Dems to rather pathetic standard retorts like the ones included in the article from Nancy Pelosi, which basically amount to "Anonymous generic sources say that drilling now will only help a little bit, so let's not bother talking about it."

Strangely, the article also claims that Pelosi "called the demands to lift the drilling bans a hoax." (Emphasis mine) That seems to be a very strange choice of words in this instance. A "hoax?" As in P.T. Barnum's fake mermaid, or an April Fool's Joke? Odd.

The article wraps with "Bush called these actions 'vital steps to help reduce pressure on gas prices,' although none of the actions would produce any new oil for years." Didn't AP writer H. Josef Hebert get the memo?