I voted for it before I was against it

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isOFwdbq0tsqatW6vJpkDRTI1gMgD92C94JO0

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (AP) — Democratic candidate Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain on Tuesday for taking a page out of “the Cheney playbook” on energy, overlooking his own support of oil-friendly policies that the unpopular vice president helped to craft.

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“President Bush, he had an energy policy. He turned to Dick Cheney and he said, ‘Cheney, go take care of this,’” Obama said. “Cheney met with renewable-energy folks once and oil and gas (executives) 40 times. McCain has taken a page out of the Cheney playbook.”

In stumping Tuesday in this key battleground state, Obama sought to link the troubled economy with Republican policies and offer his own energy plan in contrast. He has tried to cast McCain as more concerned about oil company profits and drilling than an overall energy strategy.

However, Obama himself voted for a 2005 energy bill backed by Bush that included billions in subsidies for oil and natural gas production, a measure Cheney played a major role in developing. McCain opposed the bill on grounds it included billions in unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry.

The Obama campaign has said the Illinois senator supported the legislation because it included huge investments in renewable energy.

God, this guy is inept.  Barack Marie Obama tried to tie McCain to Bush/Cheney energy policies, but Obama voted for the energy bill while McCain opposed it.  Again, does he not expect people to fact-check what he says?  I mean, he’s so brazen, even the AP called him on it.  Furthermore, if he voted for it because of the renewable energy investments it included, then doesn’t that contradict his earlier criticism of Cheney and how he was ignoring renewable energy?

Obama has proposed a $1,000-per family energy rebate to be paid for by a tax on excessive energy-company profits. He called for ending U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela over the next 10 years, a project he said would cost the U.S. $150 billion.

OK, so his energy plan involves confiscating money from American businesses and giving it away to people who didn’t earn it.  Is it a good idea to put American companies at a disadvantage?  Won’t this increase our dependence on foreign oil?  Will this strengthen or weaken our economy and our domestic oil industry?  And how does he propose to end reliance on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela?  By asking us to properly inflate our tires?

Obama has also proposed borrowing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve as a short-term measure to reduce gasoline prices, a conditional and limited resumption of offshore drilling, and a new emphasis on alternative energy sources and hybrid vehicles.

Sigh.  OK, first of all, Obama has admitted that his flip-flop on drilling is political.  “I still don’t believe that’s a particularly meaningful short-term or long-term position,” he said.  So much for principles.  This is what the “world has been waiting for”?  A two-faced, unprincipled flip-flopper who tries to make the middle-class happy while paying lip service to his psycho-leftists base (or vice-versa).  He’s a living symbol of America returning to our best traditions, indeed.

Secondly, the strategic petroleum reserve is intended to provide the country with an emergency supply of oil so that we’ll be able to survive a situation where our normal oil supplies are disrupted.  So borrowing 10% of our emergency reserve theoretically puts our country at risk at a time where the world’s oil supply can be cut off by a hostile regime in Iran that effectively controls shipping in and out of the Persian Gulf.  Gas prices are not a result of some emergency.  It’s a systemic problem that arose primarily as a result of environmental nutjobs and their congressional lapdogs in the Democrat party.

Thirdly, if we release a portion of our emergency reserves, the government will need to buy more expensive oil at the current market prices in order to replace it.  That’s awesome business sense, Barry.

Finally, and most confusingly, his purpose in releasing more oil into the market is to increase the supply so that prices will decrease.  But at the same time, we’re told that drilling for our own oil to increase supply won’t affect prices.  HUH?  I understand that yes, it will take time to drop new rigs and start getting oil to the market, but when investors and traders and speculators see that the USA is committed to increasing the global oil supply, the price of oil will have to come down, or they’ll lose their shirts.

Since President Bush removed the executive ban on off-shore drilling, and since McCain and congressional Republicans found a set of balls and started standing up and demanding more domestic exploration and extraction, oil prices have fallen from almost $150 to about $120.  And that’s just from talking about it.  Imagine what would happen if we actually did something about it.

Obama and the Democrats either don’t understand how markets work, or they do understand but intend to do nothing.