Gulf Drilling: The 'Same Old Dance'

Denver convention goers yesterday were greeted with this op-ed editorial in the Rocky Mountain News by former Montana U.S. Congressman Pat Williams: "Big Oil, Congress Do the Same Old Dance."

A reminder, for those mainlanders who have forgotten, that what's driving proposals to drill for oil and gas off the near-shore of Pensacola Beach, Florida, isn't really energy independence. It's the same greedy opportunism that drove efforts thirty-five years ago to despoil the Rocky Mountain Front and the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Here's an excerpt from Congressman Williams' history lesson:

The policies of both presidential candidates, President Bush, and the mostly Republican members of the U. S. Congress to begin oil drilling in the waters off our coasts comes at one of those rare political moments during which unfortunate events collide, roiling the waters and creating a clamor for immediate action – action which would not be taken in calmer seas.
* * *
We Rocky Mountain westerners have watched this scenario of moneyed, political opportunism play out many times. As Montana's Congressman during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, I was deeply involved in one of these mad scrambles for oil. The same set of criteria for opportunism had come together back then. War in the Middle East, inflation, high prices and long lines at the gas pumps offered big oil the perfect moment and they moved to open up drilling opportunities in some of America's most pristine and important places. The companies successfully enlisted the support of then President Ronald Reagan and his Secretary of the Interior, James Watt.

The exploration and drilling assault was to begin of all places, in Montana's Rocky Mountain Front and The Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Reagan and Watt, as it turned out, picked the wrong place. Despite the perceived energy shortages, long lines at the pump, and soaring gasoline prices, all due to the Arab Oil Embargo, Montanans and Americans refused to take the bait. The opposition to exploration and drilling in our last best place was widespread and the Congress accepted my resolution to prevent opening the Bob – and other wilderness areas – to the bit and bidding of the oil companies. Should our companies drill for oil? Of course . . . and they are. But reason demands that appropriate restraints be applied.

There's more and it's worth reading.

Reprise

Because the Tee-Vee talking hair-dos were talking all the way through the best speech of John Kerry's life:

John McLiar

UPDATED BELOW
Steve Benen, the new blog host at Washington Monthly, outright calls John McCain a "liar" today for "approving" his newest political ad. Tough words. Is he right?

You be the judge. Here is what Barack Obama actually said last May:

Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That’s what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That’s what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That’s what Nixon did with Mao. I mean, think about it: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ And ultimately, that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall.

Here is how the latest ad that McCain approves misquotes those remarks:

Obama says Iran is a 'tiny' country, 'doesn't pose a serious threat.' Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't 'serious threats'? Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president.

As for us, we say "McCain -- shamefully, dangerously, dishonestly scraping the bottom of the latrine in an attempt to become president."

UPDATE
8-27 pm

ABC's "Fact Check Desk" agrees. Jake Tapper says, "This is a dishonest representation of Obama's words. * * * That is not even close to Obama saying Iran is a 'tiny' country that 'doesn't pose a serious threat.'"

Gopher Shooter

Montana state governor Brian Schweitzer "fired up a partisan crowd Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Denver," the estimable Billings Gazette reports this morning. Schweitzer was the ninth of nine Democratic governors to precede Hillary Clinton's well-televised call for unity.

Characteristically, Schweitzer "downplayed the importance of his appearance," the Gazette comments. "If you look at the list, you can see that anyone who's ever shot a gopher's got a speaking engagement here," he said.

Below is an entertaining excerpt, pure Montana. The whole can be viewed on C-SPAN, the only Tee-Vee outlet to carry the full speech in all of its High Plains glory. What the others gave you was the usual line-up of chattering TV commentators.

Feeding the TV Beast

We remember when political party conventions were hard work. There were delegates to be won over by the candidates, party principles to be articulated in writing, legislative proposals to be melded into a comprehensive party platform, and, yes, compromises to be struck, alliances to be forged or broken, disloyal or dishonest -- and sometimes just plain disgusting -- party members to be de-credentialed, and so on.

Those of you old enough to remember may recall one of the most exciting events in national political conventions occurred in 1956 when Adlai Stevenson threw the Democratic nomination for vice-president open to the floor and a nail-biting 3-ballot fight developed between Estes Kefauver and a young, upstart first-term senator by the name of John F. Kennedy. (Kefauver won the nomination but the ticket lost in November.)

Today, it's all just a stage show choreographed for TV. Choreographed none too well, we might add. Neither network nor commercial cable television really cares much, oddly enough, except for the fact it is free to produce. The only TV source covering the whole of the convention is C-SPAN.

Changing the rules for an event to accommodate the TV beast has consequences. Major league baseball learned that lesson when it invented the odious designated hitter rule to answer TV's demand for more hits and runs. Professional basketball learned it when it agreed to the "TV time-out" which more often than not kills team momentum on the floor just when it might make a difference in the outcome. Pro football learned it when it sold its soul to television and the game became interminable, losing much of its "pace and tempo."

As the Museum of Broadcast Communications candidly observes, the "soap opera" demands of television exact "concessions" from "the real world" like sporting events that can profoundly change the very nature of the "real world." So it is, too, with "real world" events like political conventions.

What changes in political conventions can we see? No one seems to ask anymore what principles does this candidate stand for? How smart is he or she? How effective is this candidate likely to be in public office? How consistent has he been in the past? How honestly is he depicting himself -- or his opponent?

Television thinks we want to know, instead, does his wife love him? Are his kids cute? Is he somebody I'd like to have a beer with? And, as always, the TV beast wants to showcase its own commentator stars, not the players themselves.

Little wonder that we're in the fix we are internationally, militarily, economically, and even constitutionally. Over three-fourths of the nation knows the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction. What to do about it? The TV beast says, Find out if Michelle Obama can "connect" with you.

We have nothing against Michelle Obama. We're happy for her that she "flourished" last night. For that matter, we have nothing against Carol and Cindy McCain, either. May they, or at least whichever one of them attends the Republican Convention, flourish just as much.

And it will be the same with the Republicans. Television, especially commercial television, homogenizes everything, even our national discourse, into an insipid soap opera to the point where it all looks like an Olympic competition, at best, and at worst like just another installment of As The World Turns.

The TV beast would respond, of course, that it's only giving us what We the People demand. Ratings are everything; judgment counts for nothing. In so far as that is true, as scholars have noted about the ancient games of the Roman Coliseum, television surely does serve a "purpose" but it's worth considering what that purpose might be:

While there is no doubt that the games were barbarous, sadistic, and, to say the least, reprehensible, it must also be admitted that they served their purpose. By the dawn of the Empire, the Romans had relinquished almost all their political rights to an autocratic government. This was the one place where they still had power--even if it was only over the life of one or a few miserable slaves. In a very real sense, then, the games served as a valuable outlet for pent-up frustrations.

History books also tell us that the more autocratic became the (former) Roman Republic -- the more political rights the people lost -- the more elaborate, bloody, and distracting the emperors made the games.

We're not arguing here that entertaining the plebes isn't a clever strategy. We're merely suggesting that the way television covers the conventions, and conventions mold themselves to meet television's demands, are not consistent with America's democratic values and the duty of every citizen to become informed about what really matters before Election Day.

Biden Time

For what it's worth, count us deflated but willing to be persuaded by Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden for a running mate. As Gawker says, sometimes he can come off like a hilarious blowhard.

But don't take Gawker's word for it. Take ours. Some years ago, we had the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with Joe Biden during one of the many Iowa caucus seasons when he was running for president and almost no one was noticing. Joe Biden is a very nice guy and a terrific father but that night, at least, he seemed burdened by a woolly brain and an untrained tongue.

Want a dad? He is your man, hands down. Want a vice president? Frankly, based on that one experience we think Hillary looks like George Washington in comparison.

On the other hand, everyone can have an off night. Besides, John McSame can be counted on to make a worse choice.

Reconsidering the Democratic Campaign

Hillary Clinton has totally pissed off half the Democrats in American by seemingly campaigning for John McCain. Meanwhile, Barack Obama's chief foreign policy advisor resigned today after calling Mrs. Clinton a "monster." And another of his advisors says neither Hillary nor Obama is "ready to have that 3 am phone call." Do you happen to have another resignation form handy?

Says a Kos contributor, "The only one happy" about all of this "is John McCain." What we say is, it's time to reconsider this idea from a month ago:

He foresaw global warming. He "took the initiative" on the Internet. And he knew exactly how Iraq would turn out. Who's to say that Al Gore hasn't known all along that the Democratic race would descend into some weird state of gridlock--and that only he, the Goracle, could rescue the party from civil war?

As a Pennsylvania blogger points out, that's what "super-delegates" are for.