I admit I’ve been shocked by Thomas Friedman’s columns of his late, which have been pretty doom-and-gloom. In his recent column on energy policy, Friedman channels his gloom into sheer anger and goes off on President Bush.
I’m not sure about the headline: Mr. Bush, lead or Leave,’ considering the fact that Bush is definitely leaving, albeit in seven months. But it’s obviously not soon enough for Friedman:
Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was “addicted to oil,” and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.”
…..It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is. But it gets better. The president actually had the gall to set a deadline for this drug deal……
Friedman also urges Bush to helpp push through “The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008,” lest “thousands of jobs” be lost. I guess among the jobs that won’t be lost are the three jobs created through Davidson County’s new solar plant.
Friedman does, however, show that he’s still somewhat grounded in reality, proposing answers that that environmentalists continue to reject:
Of course, we’re going to need oil for years to come. That being the case, I’d prefer — for geopolitical reasons — that we get as much as possible from domestic wells. But our future is not in oil, and a real president wouldn’t be hectoring Congress about offshore drilling today. He’d be telling the country a much larger truth:
“Oil is poisoning our climate and our geopolitics, and here is how we’re going to break our addiction: We’re going to set a floor price of $4.50 a gallon for gasoline and $100 a barrel for oil. And that floor price is going to trigger massive investments in renewable energy — particularly wind, solar panels and solar thermal. And we’re also going to go on a crash program to dramatically increase energy efficiency, to drive conservation to a whole new level and to build more nuclear power. And I want every Democrat and every Republican to join me in this endeavor.”
Energy policy isn’t a subject in which a lot of people have credibility, including the presidential candidates. On tonight’s show, O’Reilly speculated that the first candidate to offer up a coherent energy plan, whether it was Obama or McCain, would win the election. No more ‘we gotta, we gotta….” O’Reilly says.
Which brings me to the U.S. Senate race between Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan. A lotta ‘we gotta’ on both sides, with the exception of immigration, where Dole is pushing the federal 287(g) program. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a clearly defined solution. The only way Hagan responds is to incorrectly refer to it as an “unfunded federal mandate,” though it’s unclear whether she’s doing so literally or figuratively.
Dole’s vulnerable, and some serious answers what Hagan needs to make this an extremely competitive race. I just haven’t seen any so far.
