The latest attempt to win over Republicans

When is Barack Obama going to learn that they are going to call him a Muslim terrorist socialist antichrist even if he does things like this:

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.

The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

Yup, that's vintage Obama -- try to cut the baby in half in the hope of getting bipartisan support for something Republicans will never, ever go for. If he still thinks Republicans will go for any effort to combat climate change (when they don't believe we have any part to play in it) after the health care near-debacle, I don't know what's going to convince him that these people will not work with him under ANY circumstances.

Then there's the delusion this will create that we don't have to worry about oil because we can pump our way to the return of cheap gas and Hummers. Meanwhile, here in New Jersey, we have had three major storms in six weeks -- one blizzard that left us with up to 20 inches of snow, a late-winter near-hurricane that brought us 70mph winds and up to 6" of rain in two days (and toppled my giant blue spruce tree in the front yard), and another one this week that brought up to another 5" of rain. But no, climate change has nothing to do with that either.

The only comfort that I take in this is that it's the states who chanted "Drill baby drill" during the 2008 election campaign who will find oil globs washing up on their beaches.

Oh yeah, and this too.

The other day Sarah Palin was using her patented "How's that hopey-changey thing workin' for ya" line again. Until I read this, I was inclined to say "Pretty damn good." Now I'd say "I don't know why you think we need to elect Sarah Palin; Obama is doing everything the oil industry wants."