It isn't looking good right now.

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"Astroturfing" by a huge PR firm—Winner & Associates, with ties to the Barack Obama campaign—might actually have been aided, financed, or encouraged by "The King of Astroturfing," Axlerod himself, who works for . . . um, who was that? Oh, yeah: Barack Obama.

The idea was to discredit McCain's VP pick with more than just her family's traumas.

At issue is a video clip about Sarah Palin that attempts to exaggerate her links to the Alaskan Independence Party, a week after the rumor that she'd been a member of that group had been debunked. (And, of course, there are still "grassroots" efforts to slime her on birth control/sex education, creationism, supposed ties to John Birchers and/or the Buchanan campaign, homophobia . . . her putative use of racial slurs—the list goes on and on . . .)

And here's the clip, going more viral than Winner & Associates necessarily intended:

See that clip of Sarah "welcoming" the AIP? She didn't attend as governor, but she instead sent them a good-will tape, telling them that "diaologue" is always good. (No: not all members of the AIP want to leave the Union. Yes: Todd Palin has been a member of the AIP.)

But here's Rusty for you:

Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views.

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.

It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:

• Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.

• The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.

• Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.

• Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.

• The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.

• This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod's firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as "astroturfing."

• David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief media strategist.

• The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe. Our findings follow.

At issue? Rusty again:

Our reading of FEC regulations suggests that political campaign and 527 groups, such as Moveon.org, are required to report money spent on advertising opposing a candidate for public office. We can find no exception for advertising intended for web only campaigns.

We assume that if some group paid for the production of the video, that it would be reported to the FEC. Not doing so, we believe, would constitute a breach of federal campaign law.

Ace adds:

I asked Rusty earlier, when I was teasing it, if they'd yanked the videos yet.

He scoffed at the idea they read this (or his) blog. I know for a fact they do.

Anyway, they're down now. Gee, that was fast.

Trouble is, boys, we got copies. Of everyfuckingthing.

You goddamned rats.

Tomorrow they will claim this was all inadvertent, etc. They'll say they did produce the ad, and sent it to Winner and Associates to, um, focus-group or something, then decided not to run it, but that dirty Winner family and its employees attempted to get it to go viral without their authorization.

Whatever.

If this is all so innocent, why are the videos being yanked even as we speak?

Silly. Because deleting You Tube vids they don't like any more is what the Winner family does on Sunday nights. The family that attempts to destroy evidence together . . . loses their livelihood together. I hope.

Implicated in what might turn out to be a plot odd series of coincidences surrounding the dissemination of untruths about Sarah Palin: The PR Firm Winner and Associates; multiple members of the Winner family (including Ethan S. Winner and his father, Charles "Chuck" N. Winner); at least one other empoyee of Winner & Associates; "A Group of Concerned Americans," which appears to be a proxy for W&A, as does You Tube user "gocamerica"; Publicis Groupe, which is one the world's top advertising/PR firms, and owns Winner & Associates; David Axelrod; and a few of his colleagues.

Rusty's account is an extensive post, but well worth reading as a case study in how the internet can be manipulated by corporate interests and sleazy campaigns.

Patterico, Jane Novak, Dan Riehl, and Ace of Spades have chipped in on this effort. (I also tried to help—along with another L.A.-area blogger with ties to the entertainment industry—but we were not able to contribute much, I'm afraid. The others did beautifully without us.)

Riehl on the Smear Story;
Ace's article (with a flaming skull, natch—and quoted above) on the Winner & Associates scandal.
Patterico (who assisted in the distillation of facts Rusty started with), calls the story "a potential bombshell."
Malkin is on the case.

[Bumped, so it'll stay at the top for another 12 hours after I originally wrote it; I got my post up by just after midnight, Pacific, because I was out during the evening.]

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So the surveillance period is over: David Kernell's apartment has been searched.

Re: the 1:00 a.m. timing, all Stacy's points are well-taken. But if I were being watched by the FBI, I probably wouldn't be doing a lot of partying . . .

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Via a notation from Ana Marie Cox on Twitter, A.O. Scott in The New York Timesdiscusses Wallace's voice, which he attempts to separate from Wallace's life.

Good luck, Buddy.

Special bonus: the headline is "The Best Mind of His Generation." Get it?

When, as an undergraduate with a head full of literary theory and a heartsick longing for authenticity, I first encountered David Foster Wallace, I experienced what is commonly called the shock of recognition. Actually, shock is too clean, too safe a word for my uncomfortable sense that not only did I know this guy, but he knew me. He could have been a T.A. in one of my college courses, or the slightly older guy in Advanced Approaches to Interpretation who sat slightly aloof from the others and had not only mastered the abstruse and trendy texts everyone else was reading, but also skipped backward, sideways and ahead. It was impressive enough that he could do philosophy — the mathematical kind, not just the French kind. But he also played tennis — Mr. Wallace, in fact, had competed seriously in the sport — and could quote lyrics from bands you only pretended you’d heard of. Without even trying, he was cooler than everyone else.

All this shone through Mr. Wallace’s fiction. He had the intellectual moves and literary tricks diagrammed in advance: the raised-eyebrow, mock-earnest references to old TV shows and comic books; the acknowledgment that truth was a language game. He was smarter than anyone else, but also poignantly aware that being smart didn’t necessarily get you very far, and that the most visible manifestations of smartness — wide erudition, mastery of trivia, rhetorical facility, love of argument for its own sake — could leave you feeling empty, baffled and dumb.

Another way of saying this is that Mr. Wallace, born in 1962 and the author of an acclaimed first novel at age 24, anchored his work in an acute sense of generational crisis. None of his peers were preoccupied so explicitly with how it felt to arrive on the scene as a young, male American novelist dreaming of glory, late in the 20th century and haunted by a ridiculous, poignant question: what if itÂ’s too late? What am I supposed to do now?

Yeah, well: one could almost say the same thing about female writers. Almost.

Cox characterizes the piece as "deft." Maybe. Certainly, the point is well taken that a high I.Q. and $3.50 can buy one a Chai Latte at Starbucks. So, you know: we've got that going for us.

I still think that what he did was really, really stupid.

And with that, I think I'll go to bed.

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From Charlie's masterful debunking of Palin rumors over at Observations, the truth about the "victims charged for rape kits" allegation:

No, she didnÂ’t try to charge rape victims personally for rape kits. This is one of those complicated ones with a tiny hint of truth behind it.

First, the Chief of Police in Wasilla (not Palin) did apparently have a policy of asking a victimÂ’s health insurance to pay for the rape kit as part of the ER visit. This, it turns out, is policy in a number of states, including Missouri and North Carolina.

Second, the way this became an issue was after the then-governor of Alaska signed a bill forbidding it; this law was signed before Palin was Governor and no one tried to reverse it while she was Governor.

Third, what the CoP in Wasilla wanted to do was charge the perpetrator as part of restitution.

Which actually sounds like a great idea; hope they take it all the way there at some point. But it sounds like Palin had little or nothing to do with any of this.

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Well, it's appalling. All she's done is:

• On the hugely important natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the Lower 48, Palin renegotiated a pipeline deal people had all but given up on—left in tatters by her predecessor: she played hardball with three big petroleum companies, and forced them to deal with her on Alaska's terms, rather than their own. (These are organizations whose GDPs are bigger than that of most of the world's countries.) Palin got concessions from them to benefit the people of her state.

&bull To get the natural gas pipeline going, she also had to negotiate among several governments, including: (1) others within the state government, (2) the federal government, (4) the Canadian federal government, (5) several Canadian provincial governments, and (6) several Native American nations (sovereign nations, mind you) in both the U.S. and Canada, as well as (7) other West Coast state governments within the U.S.

• Palin has also dealt with the Federal government in the operation of its missile defenses, which are located in Alaska. These are one of the most pivotal elements within our national defense; they remain on high alert 24 hours a day (unlike other missile-defense facilities), and her role in coordinating these forward defenses makes her privy to military briefings that are highly sensitive—probably more so than those received by any other state governor.

• Governor Palin is, furthermore, in charge of the Alaska National Guard—which means she has been responsible for deploying troops to Iraq. Furthermore, she was proactive enough to visit groups of Alaska's guardsmen and -women who were stationed in Kuwait, to keep morale up and to see first-hand what some of the conditions were that they were dealing with—as well as what kind of training they were getting as the bases there.

• Palin has served as President of the Alaska Conference of Mayors, Chair of the Alaska Gas and Conservation Commission, and Chair of the National Governors Association Natural Resources Committee. She is currently Chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, which is an intergovernmental body comprising the governments of Alaska and several other states.

To give credit where credit is due, Barack Obama had to walk a tightrope between pleasing Chicago's traditional Democratic party machine (to which his wife has close ties) and catering to the "community's" far-left extremists, of both the Black Supremacy stripe and the dyed-in-the-wool Marxist bent. True, there was no multi-billion-dollar natural-gas pipeline at stake, but I'm sure it affected a lot of votes among Chicago's residents and their pets/dearly departed/ancestors. So it isn't like the man can't practice diplomacy.

I guess it's more a question of which negotiations are tougher: the ones Obama conducted with grant writers and dead people, or the ones Sarah Palin accomplished with provincial, Federal, Canadian national, and state governments, and with huge petroleum/national gas companies.

Bit of a tough choice, huh? Six one way, half-dozen the other . . .

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I think Obama is the bee's knees:

I hope he follows up by hiding under the bed if the Russians, the Iranians, or any of the Islamo-Fascist Terrorists make any major moves once he's elected President, or if there's any further threat to the economy from destabilization caused by his friends and patrons at Freddie and Fannie . . .

Usually, just as a situation becomes more challenging, the best thing to do is to throw away any tools that might help to deal with them.

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Appeared at CLC, and I missed it.*

So I Twitter-tweeted Eric Odom, to let him know that I think Kevin Farley is much better-looking than Michael Moore, whom he plays in An American Carol. (Oh. He plays an obnoxious filmmaker named "Michael Malone." My mistake.) And that Odom should tell Farley I said so.

I got this back: "I actually showed Kevin Farley your tweet while I was on the stage with him. :-) "

Kewl.

My response: "Excellent; I haven't met him, but he seems like a sweetheart, from what I've read and heard. Much MUCH cuter than the Evil Guy."

• • •

BTW: trailers and clips for David Zucker's An American Carol, which opens October 3rd, are here. That site doesn't always seem to get along with my Mac, so I've also been getting updates at "Old Faithful," the official An American Carol site. And—gee whiz—here the trailer:

See? They try to make Farley homely, like Michael Moore, but he just isn't.

Here's more—the An American Carol "montage," which I think I've posted before:

This is the site for getting updates from Vivendi. (If you're a media person, please let me know: I'm badgering the production company directly to give new media types some access to the people involved in this film, so we can talk it up a bit. I'm reachable at miss, then a dot, then attila. Then an "at" sign. Followed by Gmail.com)

Finally, the "guerilla"/parody site for An American Carol is from a "grass roots" organization called, of all things, MooveAlong.org. Hm.

An American Carol has to succeed, because it's important to demonstrate to "the industry" that if they want to make money, they need to embrace more diverse points of view than are currently found in entertainment.

David Zucker was a left-liberal who turned classical-liberal when he was "mugged by 9/11" back in 2001. We know him from the Naked Gun movies; the Police Squad! TV series; Scary Movie 4, Airplane!, H.U.D., The Kentucky Fried Movie, Ruthless People, and some wickedly funny political spots for the 2004 election season, here, here, here, and here.

Along with Kevin P. Farley, An American Carol stars Kelsey Grammer (as George S. Patton), Serdar Kalsin (as "Ahmed"), Geoffrey Arend (as "Mohammed"), and Robert Davi (as "Aziz"), along with the wonderful Jon Voight (the ghost of George Washington), Trace Adkins (the Spirit of Christmas Future), James Woods, Chriss Anglin (as John F. Kennedy), Dennis Hopper, and Leslie Nielsen.

It should be loads of fun: go opening night!

* I did not drive out for CLC or or the BlogWorld Expo, though both are in Las Vegas this year—more or less concurrently—and I could have had two for the price of housing + two tanks of gas. Instead, I'm saving that money to go out there in late October as part of a "get out the vote" effort for the Palin-McCain campaign. [Oh. Sorry: McCain-Palin. There we go.]

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Jan's appetite tonight at dinner will be either greater or less than usual, and her sense of smell with be more sensitive/acute. She's also due for an extra dose of estrogen soon, which should put her in a good mood once it kicks in.

If she won't or can't drink more than a half-glass of wine, that will clinch it.

Hm. The plot thickens.

For my own part, I've decided that married-without-children is a sensible middle ground between spinsterhood and motherhood. All of the benefits of marriage, without the downside of a demanding family life. Which frees me up to do . . . whatever it is I'm doing. So there.

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self-hating Jews, self-hating goyim, woman-hating women, and racism. It's really quite a charming little world these hard-core Barack supporters live in.

No: Sandra Bernhard isn't wearing glasses as she makes fun of Sarah Palin's glasses. But she does have her hair up as she makes fun of Palin wearing her hair up. ('S okay: it's a Queen Bee thing. You wouldn't understand. Freedom for Bee, but not for Thee.) She should have made fun of Palin's having a vagina, though she came pretty close to doing just that.

Bernhard is not just a vehicle for stoking whatever latent tensions still exist between Jews and Christians in this country—and between Jews and non-Jews (furthermore, the tension between Jewish women and "shiksas," which of course parallels the tension between white women and black women, and amounts to the same charge: "you're stealing our men"). It also stokes fears of black men as inherently violent and rape-prone, and makes violent blacks the "enforcers" for some elite, politically correct Jews. Ick.

And, of course, it rests, as The Anchoress points out, on the racist supposition that it would be worse to be gang-raped by black men vs. white men. (Sure. Their blackness . . . might rub off or something. White women fear getting Negro molecules on their skin, or up their poontangs. Or something. It's not really clear, except in Bernhard's weird imagination. I mean, if she's going to go all ethnic on the "shiksa," shouldn't the Governor be raped by gangs of Jewish guys? Are they incompetent as rapists? Do they need to work on their raping skills?)

The imagery could well exacerbate the historical rift between blacks and Jews in certain regions of the country. (Yes, New York/Tri-State: I'm looking at you.)

All in one little "comedy" routine. That's quite an accomplishment, Sandra.

By the way:

Q: You know what the problem is with Jewish men?

A: They don't like Jewish women.

Isn't that funny? No, really: isn't that fucking hilarious?

Of course, one could dissect this silly monologue further, and ask Sandra politely when Sarah has "pointed her finger" at other women (as Sandra does at the moment she accuses Sarah of same), or when she has "referenced our [!] Old Testament" in public. Palin probably has done the latter; I doubt that she's done the former. Reference, please, Madame Bernhard?

Oh, sorry: it's all about the emotion. No scholarship. No intellect.

The fact that Bernhard is so in-touch with her emotions is probably at the same time what makes her such a great actress (her performance in The King of Comedy was truly amazing), and the reason she is such a poor comic: naked aggression without cleverness or wit is not funny. It is simply sad.

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Strictly speaking, it would be best if Franken didn't contribute material to SNL in the middle of a campaign.

On the other hand, the biggest scandal about Franken as a politician is that he is getting so much money from my very own state, which makes him look like a financial capetbagger.

The biggest scandal about Franken as a comedian is that he is not even remotely funny.

The biggest scandal about trying to out-McCain McCain in a comedy sketch is that it's going to be difficult to be funnier than he is on his own. Johnny Mac and I remain at odds on a handful of issues—but he's a smart dude. Tough to parody him, unless you go for his temper, which hasn't even manifested itself much in the past several years—at least not publicly. Or you can just do ageist material, which is likely where Franken "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Idiot" took it. (See the humor there? Limbaugh is big and fat. And he's an idiot. Funny, huh? And John McCain is an old crippled guy with a little bit of a short fuse sometimes. I swear: I'm killing myself, here.)

h/t: Hot Air.

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Nor do I believe that he and Palin together are shooting for sixteen. The magic number, as I see it, is twelve.

I mean, aren't they telegraphing that? Why else would Sarah refer to "a Palin-McCain Administration"?

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. . . in his own way:

I hate to tell you this, but we didn't "rape the earth." It was consensual. The earth was begging for it, Frank. And if you don't mind sloppy seconds, get in line.

Note: I hope that my readers all realize that Robert Stacy McCain is no relation to John McCain, et al.—unless, presumably, one goes back to Ireland. In which case they are probably both distant cousins of my husband's, and I'm related (via England) to James Whitmore.

And, for the record, Stacy is one of the last few holdouts in terms of not voting for his "crazy cousin John" for President. (Personally, I thought it would be me, but I fell like a libertarian domino around March of this year.)

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The always-refreshing Dan Blatt, writing for PJ Media about why so many gays—even ones who don't like that "R" letter after a politician's name—are pleased with McCain's Veep pick:

Like many other Republicans, gay Republicans cite PalinÂ’s reform record and mainstream conservative views as the basis of their support. We like that she took on the corrupt Republican establishment in Alaska and hope she can help John McCain do something similar in Washington, DC. And we like her plucky nature. Sarah Palin is no ordinary politician. We were wowed by her speech at the Republican Convention.

To be sure, we have some concerns about her stands on gay issues. She supported her stateÂ’s 1998 constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, barring state recognition of same-sex nuptials.

She’s also said that “she’s not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay,” confirming Eric’s impressions. We do wish she would chastise her church, the Wasilla Bible Church, for promoting the notion that homosexuality is “curable.” I fear, alas, that is not going to happen.

While she is solid on most issues of concern to us as Republicans, she is not perfect on gay issues. But most gay Republicans, like most Republicans, understand that the solutions to social problems do not come from the state. And we know we need reform in Washington, the kind of reform Sarah Palin brought to Juneau.

While John McCain’s “selection of the Alaska governor has energized the GOP’s socially conservative wing,” it has also inspired a lot of gay and lesbian Republicans. It has brought together left-leaning lesbians and Hillary-supporting gay men concerned about Barack Obama’s qualifications with gay conservatives unhappy with McCain’s frequent departures from party orthodoxy.

We see in Sarah Palin John McCainÂ’s real commitment to reform. That is why, despite her mixed record on gay issues, we are excited by her nomination.

That's what a lot of people don't seem to get: the more libertarian the candidate is, the less his or her private convictions on matter of morality have any bearing. Yeah: Palin is "pro-life" enough to have brought Trig to term, but she isn't going out of her way to coerce other wome to take a similar course. Her church became too Fundamentalist for her (or she became not-Fundamentalist-enough for it), and she has apparently drifted from it doctrinally—but still retains strong bonds of affection for many of its members.

Above all, she gets that when men and women of conscience disagree on moral matters, it is generally best to err on the side of liberty.

Also, she knows how to veto legislation. Not a bad start.

Related: (1) James Kirchick's recent article in the Wall Street Journal about how it's time for the GOP to give up gay-bashing. Past time, I'd say.

(2) Kirchick himself notes that this past Republican convention was 99% gaybash-free, in marked contrast to past embarrassing moments in the past several Presidential GOP Conventions.

(3) The fact that (as reported in The Advocate, not only were the Log Cabin Republicans officially invited to the 2008 convention as a group, but multiple officials from the McCain campaign (including its top strategist, Steve Schmidt) stopped by LCR gatherings to pay their respects). And:

(4) The change in approach within the GOP from the past has led to a the LCRs actually endorsing McCain, even as they refused to so honor G.W., who had to parrot the party line once more in 2004. (As if anyone believes that Bush and Cheney and Secretary Rice are actually anti-gay in real life. But he made those pro forma statements, and the LCRs were right to decline endorsing him. I'll bet many still voted for W, though.)

Schmidt: "The day will come." Yes; it will.

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and Darrell had to remind me, too. I hang my head in shame.

"Not my will, but Thine, be done." Even if one doesn't agree, why is it so hard to understand?

And how much chutzpah does it take to misquote someone to her face, and then to keep hammering at your own misinterpretation of her words?

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Once someone works in Government, he or she has no right to privacy any more; not even in his/her private emails. Even if the punk who committed this Federal Crime says he found nothing incriminating.

Just like how "two for the price of one" was a good thing for the Clintons, but is not for the Palins—and any involvement in the government by Todd Palin was inappropriate.

I've solved the problem of people invading my privacy and committing possible identity theft by telling my Gmail accounts that they must never wear short skirts, or they are "just asking for it."

Oh, wait: those two premises depend on what letter the person has after his or her name, don't they?

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Racists!

Double-Plus Undead put a content warning on this one. But if I started doing stuff like that, wouldn't I have to "NSFW" my whole blog? (Still: even less SFW than usual.)

Aw, come on. 'S funny 'cause it's true.

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Arrgh, it be talk like a pirate day again. But they'll not be telling you which pirate ye need to be talkin' like. How about this one?

And here I be at the Auto Repair Place, wearing a T-shirt other than my Disneyland "Pirates of the Caribbean" shirt, with its skull-and-crossbones flag that be glowin' in the dark. Unfortunately, it be havin' polyester fibers it its fabric, so it be an easy T-shirt to overheat in.

I be thinkin' of cuttin' the sleeves off of it and makin' it into a muscle shirt. To show off my buff arms.

Christophe Twitter-tweeted the most half-assed Pirate talk I've ever seen in my life, in "spirit of the day": "R." Is that the text-talk/Leet speak version of Pirate-patter? Also, how would that sound in LOLCAT?

Hm. Nokitty be hoistin' the Jolly Roger. But we can haz:

more animals

Pirate Duckies!

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Over at Hot Air, the new McCain ads for Michigan and Ohio focus in on the dual-headed monster of the energy crisis and underemployment:

Michigan specifically mentions drilling (along with "clean vehicles," and a glimpse of a hybrid-car symbol):

Ohio's ad is similar, but more of a frontal assault on job-creation through small businesses and renewable energy:

It's a good move to mention securing our retirement in these spots, as well.

The McCain people seem to be cranking out one or political ads a day, and they know when to take an optimistic tone--as with the economics-minded, forward thinking spots linked above, with the jangly music--and when/how to go on the attack--as with the Raines ad about the Fannie Mae Crisis:

One of the cleverest features in that particular spot is McCain making his statement of responsibility at the beginning--so his name isn't linked to the "prosecuting attorney" tone at the end, nor the assertion "not ready to lead." Instead, that accusation is left to echo inside the viewer's head.

h/t: Ohio and Michigan ad via Ed at Hot Air. The Raines ad is also from Mr. Morrissey, and he's got some good background there on how little economic change Obama! would really bring.

(And, aye--it being Talk Like a Pirate Day, I'd just like to tell the Obama campaign that they need to get some grog, and prepare to be boarded . . . )

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

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The Wall Street Journal today:

With only two weeks remaining in the congressional session, the antidrilling Democratic leadership is under considerable pressure to allow increased offshore oil and gas exploration. They don't much like it--Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes that by stopping offshore drilling "I'm trying to save the planet," and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York wants Saudi Arabia to increase its production by a million barrels a day but opposes U.S. drilling on the OCS or ANWR--but it has become reality.

The bill that passed the House Tuesday would allow drilling 100 miles offshore anywhere, and 50 miles off any state that approved drilling. But more than 80% of known oil reserves are inside the 50-mile limit, and ANWR drilling is still not permitted, even though it involves only 2,000 of Alaska's 20 million acres of coastal plain. No royalties would be shared with the states under the House bill, and $18 billion in existing government subsidies for oil companies would be repealed.

The upcoming Senate version proposes to allow drilling off only four states--Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia--and to raise taxes on the oil industry by some $30 billion.

* * *

There is no question a great deal of oil and gas is on the Outer Continental Shelf, but the Democratic Party has been opposed to offshore drilling for a long while, and the Republicans have sometimes joined Democrats. Now it is time for a change. As Ronald Reagan said in his 1980 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention: "Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes, and controls than more energy."

He was talking about the Carter administration, but a quarter-century later the Democratic congressional majority would also like more energy regulation, taxes and controls.

We can buy some time to perfect the renewables, but to do it we need more drilling, more natural gas, more clean coal, and more nuclear power.

And as I discussed yesterday, there is plenty of space to move the rigs out of sight (12-20 miles) and still stay within 50 miles off-shore, so the platforms are near the actual petroleum deposits they are designed to extract.

Let the moratoria die.*

* What a funny way to put it: it sounds like "let death die." Presumably "death" is the root meaning for "moratorium."

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