Well, I’ll be very interested in hearing Obama’s “thorough and nuanced” answers to why it would be a good idea to release some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves and why senior citizens shouldn’t pay taxes if they make less than $50k.
You say that like either one of those things is patently absurd. Do you actually have a problem with the latter?
The first is as patently absurd as McCain’s offer of a summer gas tax holiday. Actually, it’s a bit worse since McCain’s plan doesn’t jeopardize the SPR, although neither would put more than a pittance in anyone’s pocket.
I say that about the latter because I think it’s bad policy and that Obama is advocating it to pander to old people, with whom he polls poorly. As a soon-to-be geezer myself, it would help me personally, but that doesn’t make it good national policy.
If you’d like to offer a “thorough and nuanced” defense of those policies, please do so.
Though I am thoroughly in the tank for Obama, I agree with John Mace on both of these points. And I would like to see them both explained- I think opening the strategic reserves to combat high market prices is wrong on every level- it misuses the petroleum reserve and weakens us strategically, and it applies artificial downward pressure on the price of gas, removing incentives to change our behavior.
Until we can run M1A1’s and Hummers on batteries, we should leave the strategic reserve alone except in case of severe existential threat.
These, and Obama’s pushing for NATO membership for Georgia, represent my main recent beefs with the guy.
Just to be clear, I think Obama is going to do very well in the debates. I just don’t think he walks on water at that kind of venue. I’d give Obama the edge, although it wouldn’t surprise me if the media says they are a draw (unless there is some major stumble by one of the candidates). And McCain has plenty of whacky policies that need some 'splaining, too. I only brought those two about Obama in response to an over-the-top expectation in the post I referenced.
As he has a history of explaining his decisions (the FISA explanation and the recent drilling discussion strike me as two cases where, though I don’t agree with him, I feel dealt with as an adult), I am looking forward to getting some sort of justification for his NATO stance and the strategic reserve idea. It’s one of the reasons why I like him, I feel like he is at least thinking about this stuff. And it’s why I look forward to the debates. McCain is no pushover and he’s done a thousand debates- he should push Obama on this stuff, trying to trap him into some untoward statement. Of course, Obama will be doing the same thing.
I don’t really know if I buy into McCain as doddering fool, I just don’t think he reacts well to being micromanaged as thoroughly as he is right now. In a debate, when he is totally self-sufficient, I would not give him any rope at all. He’s still a pitbull and he seems to do better when unrestrained. I think it will be interesting.
Well, his plan is to exchange 70mil barrels of sweet crude (used in refining gasoline) for heavier and cheaper sour crude (useful in producing diesel which I assume is what most military vehicles run on). Currently we have 283mil barrels of sweet and 425 barrels of sour in the Reserve. I don’t believe he simply intends to leave a 70mil barrel deficit in the Reserve.
Also, hybrid military vehicles are the future. Silent running is a freaky thing, yet exceptionally handy.