I was listening to Tom Friedman (yeah, him) on NPR this evening. He has a new book: Hot, Flat, Crowded. It's about his recent discovery of "the environment" and how we're in deep doo-doo. He sounded pretty good, actually; his talking points were solid. I know because I read all of them 30 years ago in Not Man Apart, the old newsletter of Friends of the Earth.
Anyway, he professed himself severely disappointed in McSame's embrace of Guliani's and the Grand Oil Party's "Strength through Exhaustion" energy idiocy policy. He specifically mentioned the bill hung up in congress to extend tax credits for wind and solar energy investing, and here I think Obama has an opportunity to really put one over.
Friedman noted that while Obama has voted three times for the extension, McYouKnowWho hasn't voted even once, even when he was in Washington at the time of one of the votes. And the bill failed to pass that time by one vote.
MOREOVER, the bill contains a plum for Arizona, a huge solar project outside of Phoenix worth several thousand jobs and infrastructure the size of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Digression into History: Everyone talks about Willie Horton as if that was the issue that sank Dukakis and won the election for George Bush pere. However my impression was that Dukakis began his downward spiral when Bush pulled off the Boston Harbor coup. See, the Democrats figured they had a lock on the environment as a campaign issue. Bush chartered a boat, took a ride with the press around Boston Harbor pointing out the pollution right in Dukakis' back yard. The press ate it up and the stunt left the Democrats floundering for weeks.
So. Obama should book the next flight to Phoenix, grab a bunch of press people, and walk them around the empty space that would have been a thriving, jobs producing, green energy facility, if only Collaboration T. Cornpone McCain weren't so in bed with the Bush oil crowd that he won't even vote to give his own constituents a break, for Pete's Sakes!