As a Bush supporter, who voted for him twice, I have to say that the Bush admin’s energy policy STINKS.

For instance, Bush could have endorsed a large-enough-to-be-significant alt-energy package, and gotten Congress to go along by selling it to the left as pro-environmental, and the right as promoting independence and reducing the need to intervene overseas.

If Bush himself didn’t feel that he had time to work on such a campaign, it would have been simple to bring in a heavy hitter to do the deal. There are dozens of pols on both the right and left who’d have loved to get sponsorship of such a package on their records.

… I like both parties better when they are in opposition.

I like both parties better when they are comatose.

The Republicans live in a world where the media is dead set against them, monolithic (except FNN) and vicious. Any “anti-environmental” action by Republicans would lead to highly misleading and damaging media campaign. I suspect a number of them made the calculation that supporting various reasonable “anti-green” proposals would be very dangerous at election time, and I think, unfortunately, that this is correct. In other words, they sensed the “will of the people” (as manipulated by the media) and acted accordingly.

Except for a few like McCain, who just didn’t get it. But I’ve got to vote for him anyway, or it will be vastly worse.

Sadly, I think it takes something like the oil crisis to wake up consumers to the costs of their feel-good environmentalism.

But at least this time the rep’s have at least noticed that we are in a world of hurt over energy, and Jack’s Magic Beans aren’t going to make things better. Over on the other side, you have this statement from Harry Reid yesterday:

“The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqR0Ui0g3wI

So, everything makes us sick and we shouldn’t develop any of the resources we have. Plus, Harry Reid has been the number one hitman blocking the Yucca Mtn nuclear waste site, so he’s active in killing the nuclear option as well. (if you can’t put the waste anywhere, you can’t build any new nukes) What does Harry think will make things better? Magic Beans? None of the so-called alternative energy sources are anywhere near being commercialy viable on a large scale, and won’t be for years. Meanwhile, we have a problem – a BIG problem – today. What does he possibly think we can do? Does he even think at all?

point is, this is not some fringe outlier – this is one of the top party leaders. As long as this is their mindset, our energy situation is hopeless and this economy is going to go down like the titanic under $10 per gallon gasoline. It doesn’t have to be this way, and it is absolutely mystifying why the Democrats have decided to nail themselves to this particular cross. What’s wrong with providing jobs in this country and developing this country’s resources? That was certainly FDR’s policy, so why not now?

It’s starting to feel like there’s some IQ test one has to fail in order to be a good democrat these days.