What’ll be interesting to me is if in discovering that Obama isn’t going to be perfect, accomplish everything he promised, and never flip flop on anything people begin to convince themselves that he is as bad as Bush.
Essentially that all failures are equally bad.
That said, there is no comedy in showing politicians doing well so the Daily Show will really only show the bad things. This is not to say I disagree with whether those are bad things, just that it isn’t really a forum for presenting relative merits.
On the eight presidents have said and failed to change energy policy, it is a topic on which presidents actually have very little value and rhetorically have been way ahead of both congress and the American people on what should be done. We’ll all nod our heads sagely and say energy and environment is important. And then vote out of office anybody who tries to make low flow toilets mandatory or discusses that maybe we could phase out incandescent bulbs or that policies will make gas go up 50 cents a gallon.
I’m never shore what we expect presidents to do rhetorically on this issue. Either they stand up and make statements bolder than is actually within their power to promise (and eventually fail 90% of the time) or they be honest about prospects and get slammed for being wonky or failing to provide leadership or being too pessimistic or giving away the bargaining chips before bargaining has begun.
Rachel Maddow had a great bit last night about the myth of “foreign oil”. All oil goes on the spot market. It’s not like you can go to a particular gas station and buy American oil. We’re never going to be able to reduce our dependence on “foreign” oil, we can only reduce our dependence on oil.
I was reading something the other day off Yahoo Finance which included:
The article mentions that the subsidy was extended during Bush’s term. Anyway, this isn’t to argue whether the subsidies were the reason for drilling the Gulf or environmental laws or whatever… just that Gulf drilling is indeed subsidized.
Well, we built the interstate highway system with tax money. That’s a subsidy worth…let’s see, in 2010 dollars…carry the 5…probably trillions of dollars today.
Congress has devoted a large amount of money into developing ethanol as an alternative energy source. It’s a bit overstated to say that they think only of oil.
Tragically it became a giveaway to agribusiness. They need to tweak the laws to discourage using corn and encourage sawgrass and other sources. The problem is, once you start giving a group money, they expect it to continue. And nobody wins the Presidency by going to Iowa and promising to cut corn subsidies. Just having voted for a bill to do that could tank your Presidential chances.
Lowering the tariffs that keep us from importing Brazilian ethanol would be a far more immediate solution. But it wouldn’t make the corn lobby very happy.
We need nuclear power, and we need an end to holding the entire U.S. political process in the thrall of the Iowa farmers/welfare queens who demand unlimited free money in order to allow anyone to participate in the political process. These dumb hicks are going to destroy both our country and the entire world if we don’t tell them to fuck off right soon.
That’s irrelevant. ‘Foreign oil’ simply refers to the oil required to fill the gap between America’s production and it’s consumption. The ‘Oil deficit’ if you will. Reducing this deficit has many advantages, one of which would be that you could tell the Middle East to get fuck themselves
‘Foreign oil’ is a red herring in this thread, really. What all of these presidents have promised is to develop alternative energy sources so we are not dependent on fossil fuels, regardless of origin. Congresses present and past have simply refused or failed to produce any sort of meaningful domestic programs. Domestic oil as a sole energy source or even as a significant energy source, is simply political rhetoric with no basis in reality for the future.
The most poignant and surprisingly confrontational of those clips was Jerry Ford’s blasting of Congress by ripping off pages from a calendar and saying “In March, Congress did nothing ::rip:: in April, Congress did nothing ::rip:: in May, Congress did nothing. . .”
The other big surprise was how radically the Republican party has changed its platform: Nixon and Ford were both solidly in the party of energy reform and conservation. Somewhere along the line, it seems that plank was either removed by the RNC, or co-opted by the Dems.
I was surprised by that, too. Especially since Ford spent more than 20 years in Congress and was a former House minority leader. They usually won’t call out their friends and ex-colleagues like that.
Well said, and I agree. Presidents are often faced with choosing only from several bad options, and must pick the least-bad one. Politics, timing, money and conflicting priorities all have their impacts; if every White House decision were an easy one, Harry Truman would never have needed his “The buck stops here” sign. Although I agree with most of what Obama has done, I can’t say I’m delighted with everything, nor did I expect to. But he’s still a big, big improvement over his predecessor, and has done considerably better than McCain could have, under the circumstances, I think.
Most Democrats (at least the ones outside of the quickly-disappearing Old South reactionary wing of the party) were pro-energy reform and pro-conservation/environmentalist during the 70s. In fact, environmental issues had wide support across party lines during that time. Opposition to such legislation was marginalized to the fringe of the far right.
Also, although their stance seems downright leftist today, Nixon and Ford were regarded as moderate conservatives. The election of Reagan and his ideological brethren in 1980 ended up skewing the American political spectrum sharply to the right and it hasn’t really budged leftward since then. That’s why there hasn’t been anything resembling an energy policy since Carter and anti-environmental positions have made their way into the mainstream political discourse.
It was perfectly respectfull right up until the guy decided to bait others who are contributing something useful here. Political argument doesn’t belong in this forum, or am I mistaken?
You mean someone is critical of US President Obama? That’s so unfair. I mean no one ever was critical of Mr GW Bush, or Mr Clinton, or Mr Carter, or Mr Nixon, or Mr Roosevelt or Mr Lincoln…
Speaking for just myself of course, but the Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition stuff that Obama is flip-flopping on was the most important stuff that I felt he had to correct from Bush administration. It goes a long way towards being as bad as Bush, in my book.
If he was flip flopping on taxes or reduced bus fare for war widows or some such stuff, it wouldn’t matter to me near as much.
